Equip small and micro units to switch over to GST: Tanstia

‘Government should provide IT infrastructure, tools at a low cost to these units’

The Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Industries’ Association (Tanstia), which is part of several awareness meetings for MSMEs across the State on GST, has appealed to the Government to equip the small and micro units with the required IT tools to switch over to GST.

Job works

According to the association president C. Babu, micro units constitute a major part of the economy and many of these units are run by just one person, taking up job works.

For VAT, the units file returns once a month and face difficulties in uploading details as the server would be down for three or four days. In the case of GST, the the details have to be provided thrice a month. The Government should ensure that the back-end IT infrastructure is well-equipped.

Further, the micro units that are mostly operated by a single person, might not have the required IT knowledge and will have to employ someone to maintain documents and upload the information.

The Government should provide the required IT infrastructure and tools at a low cost to these units. It should also permit the units to do online and offline filing for a year.

While units with less than ₹20 lakh annual turnover are exempted from GST, the bigger units that give the job work would have to pay the duty. This would mean that the bigger units would give the job work to units that are covered under GST. Several sectors that were earlier exempted from Excise Duty are now covered under GST. The Government should increase the exemption limit for the micro and small-scale units, he said.

The Goods and Services Tax could affect the micro sector to a large extent if the units are not assisted, he added.