In a statement, Raja M Shanmugham, President said he thanked the Hon’ble Finance Minister for conceding the requisitions made by various associations including TEA and noted that the announcement of a slew of measures to boost the economy will bring business confidence to the crisis ridden sectors including MSME sector. He was also happy for the envisaged two more packages being announced in the coming weeks.
Shri. Raja M Shanmugham mentioned that the measures like Banks to issue improved transparent OTS policy to benefit MSME and retail borrowers in settling their over dues and decision of banks to pass on rate cuts through MCLR reduction to benefit all borrowers will be a great relief to the financially stressed Tirupur knitwear garment exporting units in MSME sector.
While noting down the NPA classification norms, Raja M Shanmugham appealed to revert back to ‘Two Quarter Past Due’ concept (180 days) instead of 90 days prevailing now in the case of MSMEs as it will provide some breathing time for the units to recover and recoup. He further said, enough and adequate monitoring mechanism may be implemented even if the overdue crosses 90 days to avoid any siphoning off such as being in many big corporate cases. He has also requested for restructuring two times to have leverage after considering the seasonal nature of the business.
The Rebate on State and Central Taxes and Levies was announced on 07th March 2019 for garment sector to reimburse the embedded taxes and levies not covered under GST and unfortunately, till now no online procedure has been implemented to receive the benefit in the form of duty credit scrip and for Tirupur knitwear garment sector alone, the total pending till now is about Rs. 400 cr. He requested the Hon’ble Minister to kindly help to expedite the clearing of pending claims at the earliest.
He said the Hon’ble Minister is well aware of Tirupur Cluster and has been encouraging to create brands for making its successful globally and for this initiative, our association jointly with NIFT-TEA Knitwear Fashion Institute, established by our association is setting up Design Studio to help the garment exporting units. He noted that Tirupur knitwear business is poised to reach Rs. One Lakh cr in next three years and it could be achieve with your support and guidance and in this envisaged scenario, there will be significant growth in employment also for the people, especially to women coming from throughout India.
In his thanks letter to the Hon’ble Finance Minister, he has said that Tirupur knitwear garment exporting sector will confidently march ahead in the challenging business environment, strive hard to regain growth trajectory and contribute for our economy and hope the Minister will consider the requisitions and address in the envisaged announcements. He has also sent a thanks letter to Shri. Anurag Singh Thakur, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Finance.
