Govt Promises Firm Steps to Resolve Problem of Delayed Payments to MSMEs

The minister was speaking at a national workshop organized by the MSME ministry to discuss the issue of delayed payments to MSMEs and ways to deal with it. He said that the finance ministry has recently taken some initiatives for the sector which will go a long way in strengthening it. Gadkari further assured that the recommendations of the UK Sinha committee will be implemented soon.

Besides ministry officials and bankers, the workshop was attended by entrepreneurs and various stakeholders from the MSME sector. Presentations were made by Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Chamber of Indian MS&M Enterprises, National e-governance Services Limited (NeSL) on the initiatives that are being taken to tackle the problem of delayed payments. Many stakeholders suffering from delayed payments, spoke about their complaints and placed suggestions before the minister and senior officials.

The minister appealed all the stakeholders to use MSME Samadhan Portal so that sufficient data could be gathered about willful defaulters, register themselves on stock exchanges and also assured them that the ministry will soon launch a marketing portal ?Bharat Craft? for the marketing of their products. The ministry has already notified that all companies registered with the Companies Act, 2013 with a turnover of more than Rs 5 billion and all Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) shall be required to get themselves onboarded on the TReDS platform, set up as per the notification of the Reserve Bank of India.

The ministry has also notified that all companies who get supplies of goods or services from MSMEs and whose payments to suppliers exceeds 45 days from the date of acceptance of the goods or services, shall submit a half yearly return of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs stating the amount of payments due and reason of the delay.

Gadkari also Re-Launched the Credit Linked Capital Subsidy (CLCS) web portal on the occasion. CLCS is a scheme that provides 15 per cent subsidy for additional investment up to Rs 10 million for technology upgradation by medium and small enterprises. The relaunched scheme provides an additional 10 per cent subsidy to entrepreneurs belonging to the reserved category.