Southern MSMEs put up their demands in front of FM for consideration in Union Budget

Bangalore, Jan 31 (KNN) Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (KASSIA) along with other MSME Associations of Southern India has submitted a joint memorandum to the Finance Minister putting forward issues to be considered in the Union Budget.

KASSIA shared the memorandum with KNN.

Focusing over the financial issues, the southern MSMEs have appealed in its memo that there should be easy availability of credit as complex collateral requirements makes it very difficult for them to get funds.

“Make necessary simplifications in procedures for easy access of credit to the sector without complex collateral requirements,” MSME demanded as per the memo.

Association being the voice of the small industries, claimed that infrastructure is the basic need for growth as poor infrastructure results in huge transaction costs for industry, making micro and small units uncompetitive in the world markets.

“Government should build and improve existing roads, upgrade rural road network and also ensure waste management in industrial areas and townships,” suggested associations.

On labor welfare front, the association demanded that there should be training programs and subsidies for the labors of the MSMEs.

“There should be a training ground for unskilled and semi-skilled for the MSMEs from the deprived sections and the sector must be subsidized up to 25% of the minimum wages in the first year on such employees,” demanded southern associations.

Further, highlighting the issues related to the technologies in the industrial sector, it said Indian R&D institutions and higher education institutions have extremely poor linkages and bad track record when it comes to serving the needs of industry in general.

“There must be some focused policies to encourage industry academia, R & D Institutions interface and selected large scale units to adopt micro units for technology up gradation and skill development,” said southern MSMEs.

According to the associations, understanding and expansion of market is the need of time for the MSMEs as according to them units are seriously constrained when it comes to adopting modern marketing practices for lack of expertise and skills as well as financial muscle.

“Government, therefore, must provide assistance by encouraging SMEs to take part in Fairs and Buyer-Seller meets and matchmaking events through flexible subsidies for local and international participation”, associations of south stated.

Associations also urged for the increase in credit limit with a view to meet the challenges of the market.

“Increase in the credit limit from Rs.1crore to Rs.3crores so that the credit needs of MSEs are reasonably addressed and Credit Guarantee Fund Trust (CGTMSE) corpus must be raised to at least Rs.10000crores”, Said South MSMEs.

Their memorandum to Finance Minster Arun Jaitley also includes the limit of personal income tax to be nil up to Rs 10 lakhs, “it will be appropriate if the first slab after the exemption limit is made as Rs.10 to Rs.20 lakhs”, it said. (KNN)