Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 19: Farooq Amin, Chairman, CII J&K highlighted the issue of delayed payments of MSME Units in J&K which are going through a very bad phase for the last one to two years, further impacted by the situation arising due to abrogation of Article 370 and later due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Amin further added that the pending payments of MSMEs withheld by JPDCL, KPDCL and SICOP added tremendous suffering to the MSME Units who have supplied material to these departments. Although the supplies were made after a proper tendering process and third-party inspection, however, payments have been pending for more than one year and in some cases almost as long as two years.
These pending payments have blocked the working capital of the majority of Units, causing these units to completely stop their entire business activity and they are unable to participate in any tendering process due to severe liquidity crunch.
Since the payments are not been released within the stipulated time of 45 days, the MSME Unit holders have also approached MSME Facilitation Council, where the cases are piled up for disposal.
Farooq Amin indicated that the Government of India is very sensitive about delay in payments to MSME Units. Referring to the MSME Act 2006 Chapter (V) Clauses 15 & 16, he emphasized that the Government also has financial implications and is liable to pay compound interest at three times of the bank rate notified by the Reserve Bank.
CII has been regularly meeting and taking up these issues at different levels in the J&K Government, but the issue is still not addressed and adversely impacting small units that are on the verge of closure due to this delay in payments.
CII requests the Lt Governor to intervene in this matter and address the same at the earliest for the survival of the MSME Units of J&K UT.
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