Nitin Gadkari
– globalbihari bureau
New Delhi: Government is exploring new financial lending institutions to support small-scale units in terms of financial support and is working towards strengthening the Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in this regard, Union Minister for MSME and Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, said here on Monday.
He said strengthening NBFCs will “help small businesses to avail easy credit in the coming time.”
Gadkari, who was speaking at a meeting via video conferencing with the Members of Calcutta Chamber of Commerce on impact of COVID-19 on MSMEs and the measures taken to address the challenges at hand, further added that the Special Economic Package, Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, which has provision for various support measures for MSMEs including collateral free automatic loan, distress fund “will provide the required support to MSMEs to face the current economic challenges”.
The Minister also informed the chamber about the restructuring of 6 lakh MSMEs till March 2020. “The Ministry is aiming to cover additional 25 lakh until December 2020,” he said. He added that the current contribution of MSMEs in export was 48%, “which may be increased to 60%”. He further shared that currently 11 crore jobs were being created through MSMEs and this could to be increased to 5 crores.
The Union Minister mentioned that special focus towards export enhancement is the need of the hour. He further added that there was need to reduce cost on production, logistics among other things, to become economically viable.
Some of the questions asked, and the suggestions given during the conference included: issue of delayed payment needs additional thrust to ensure timely payment to MSMEs, interest subvention of 4% should be looked at to provide support to MSMEs and safeguard them from becoming an NPA, how banks can be incentivized for proper implementation of proposed measure.
