Industries and IT Minister K.T.Rama Rao has underscored the need for the Centre to review its Aatmanirbhar relief package for the benefit of micro, small and medium enteprises as they have been impacted the most in the pandemic.
“It is time we do a sincere reappraisal of the Aatmanirbhar relief package and make it work more realistically and humanly for the most affected constituents, of which MSMEs occupy a top priority,” he said in a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Contending that impact of the package has been minimal for the sector, he said over 80% of the MSMEs in the State have faced a negative impact mainly due to the lockdown of last year and more than 25% have lost significant revenues.
On the Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line scheme for the MSMEs, in the package, under which ₹ 3 lakh crore was alloted, Mr. Rao said: “in Telangana at least, the MSME units did not find anything specifically attractive in the scheme. It took us a prolonged outreach campaign to make them avail of the benefit. What will really work is a solid financial grant that takes care of all the losses the MSMEs have suffered due to the pandemic.”
He said manufacturing MSMEs continued to face supply chain disruptions, severe shortage of labour and in some cases, a complete disruption in their customers preferences.
Two other schemes for MSMEs in the Aatmanirbhar package — Subordinate Debt scheme for stressed MSMEs and another for innovative MSMEs — remain “non-starters not just in Telangana, but as data reveals, in the entire country,” he said. The Subordinate Debt scheme offers meagre loan amount and has a requirement to establish commercial viability of the unit before the sanction, which he termed as an impractical clause.
Guidelines of the Corpus Fund scheme meant for innovative MSMEs have not been released so far, he said.
Mr. Rao suggested changes in the Centre’s PLI scheme so that MSMEs are also benefitted. “A simple tweak in the guidelines that can benefit MSMEs enormously could be to mandate the large manufacturing companies to set up a supply chain of domestic MSMEs and share the PLI benefits with each of them proportionately,” he said.
