Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Industrial Health Clinic for Telangana MSEs on the Anvil


Telangana Government has already put in place transparent, accountable, progressive and globally acclaimed industrial policy through TSiPass, T-Hub etc. Its inclusive industrial growth agenda required that the MSEs that actually oil the wheels of innovation shall be put on even keel with non-discriminatory promotional framework.

This has propelled the Industries Minister to adequately and appropriately respond to the call of the MSME Associations in the State that bee-lined to him to pour out their woes with the bank’s hurried actions in declaring them as NPAs only to sell of their silver that included their only dwelling house!!. KT. Rama Rao, Minister for Telangana deserves kudos for taking the initiative of reaching the Governor RBI directly – the first ever such effort in the Federal Republic of India to bat for the MSEs’ issues.

Friday, August 19, 2016



STRENGTHEN THE MSE FACILITATION COUNCIL SOONER THAN LATER

Most micro and small enterprises suffer from delayed payments for their supplies and services. Several contractual engagements with both the government and public sector undertakings also are not honoured.

In line with the long-standing demand of small-scale sector to alleviate the problem of delayed payments the Delayed Payments Act came into being in 1993. The hope that the small scale industries would be relieved of the stress in working capital was short-lived due to ineffective implementation. The Act has been amended in September 1998 providing for payment of penal interest at 150% of the prime lending rate of SBI, defining default period as 120 days. It also provided for an alternative mechanism of arbitration and conciliation and also redefined the term supplier to include any institution, agency or undertaking notified as such by the Union Government. Industrial Facilitation Councils empowered to act as arbitrators/conciliators were to be notified by the State/UT governments. The amendments were effected to strengthen the Act, to make it more useful without disturbing the buyer - seller cordial relations and to provide a relief to the small suppliers from undergoing the cumbersome recourse of legal redressal through civil suits.

Subsequently, in 2006 when the MSME Development Act was brought in, the Delayed Payments Act was subsumed in Sections 15to18 of the MSMED Act whereby the MSE Facilitation Councils replaced the Industrial Facilitation Councils. 

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

MSMEs on the Roller Coaster
Unhelpful Banks and Less Understood Regulations
B. Yerram Raju and K. Manicka Raj*
In a recent address RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said: “A Banker who lends with the intent of never experiencing a default is probably over-conservative and will lend to too few projects, thus hurting the growth.” In the same vein he added: “Indeed, sometimes banks signed up to lend based on project reports by the promoters’ investment bank (in the case of MSMEs chartered accountants), without doing their due diligence.”

There is a total mismatch between the banks understanding and RBI's intentions on the guidelines issued in respect of MSME financing , follow up and useful implementation of the various schemes. Because of accumulation of NPAs banks seem to have lost their sense of judgement and MSMES are the victims and the SARFAESI ACT 2002 has become very handy. Even in the best of times banks did not revive or restructure small scale industries more than 1.5 percent of their own assessed potentially viable enterprises as revealed by the RBI Annual Reports.