Member of Parliament representing Tirupur Lok Sabha constituency V Sathyabama has raised the issues facing the MSME knitwear garment exporting units with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. She has urged Jaitley for expediently clearing pending claims of MSMEs, and also to take measures for ease of filing GST returns online and system-based refund process. “The money flow to the MSME units have been totally struck up due to non-refund of ROSL since June 2017, GST and also Duty Drawback rate, which ultimately lead to working capital crunch to these units. With these negative factors, the MSMEs are not in a position to take fresh export orders at a competitive rate and execute it within a delivery schedule,” Sathyabama said in a letter to Jaitley.
“What is more disturbing is that the banks are rushing to classify them (MSMEs) as SMA-1/SMA-2/NPAs depending on the period of non-payment. The concern is that the nonrepayment is not the fault of MSMEs. Had they received the pending receivables like ROSL, GST refund and Duty Drawback in time, these units would have compiled and met the demands of banks,” she added.
The MP said that the banks should consider to the extent of government receivables and avoid the classification of MSME in terms of non-repayment period. She also pointed out that the Rs. 6,000 cr package allotted to the garment sector has not actually percolated to MSMEs, as intended. Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA) President Raja M Shanmugham thanked the MP for making representation to the Finance Minister.
