Mangaluru, May 1 (KNN) The Mangaluru Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has alleged that several measures announced by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) haven't been passed to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) till date.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Kalbavi Prakash Rao, Chairman of CII-Mangaluru, said ''Many of these relief measures announced by the RBI have not been passed on to the MSMEs by the banks till date.''

Rao also urged the Sitharaman to intervene and issue directions to all banks to pass on the benefit of repo rate cut of 75 basis points to all MSME borrowers.

''This is much-needed for the industries which are already reeling under severe losses on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought all economic activity to a halt for over 40 days,'' he added.

He further said that banks are claiming that working capital limits were sanctioned to borrowers on a one-year fixed rate of interest, and would be reduced or passed on only during the next renewal of the limits.

“This completely beats the intention of providing such a relief to the industries while banks conveniently make profit from this repo rate cut,” he said.

Requesting the Union Finance Minister to intervene and issue directions to all banks to pass on this benefit of repo rate cut of 75 basis points to all the borrowers, he said this was a specific Covid-19 relief package.

RBI had announced a series of measures, including reduction in the key repo rate by 75 basis points, to make funds cheaper for industries. There were other relief measures too, such as providing moratorium on payment of EMIs and interest in order to tide over the liquidity crunch faced by the borrowers.