Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 17: Various industrial bodies have hoped positive outcome of the initiative taken by Deputy Chief Minister Kavinder Gupta in his first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and seeking intervention of Govt of India to grant special package of incentives aimed at creation of additional employment opportunities.
In a joint meeting, Rattan Dogra, president, Association of Industries, Gangyal, Jatinder Aul, president, Small Scale Industries Association, Digiana, Deepak Dhawan, president, Birpur Small Scale Industries Association and Rajinder Gupta, president, Laghu Udyog Bharti opined that extension of Govt of India’s special fiscal package as applicable in North Eastern States shall provide fresh impetus to industrialization specially in Jammu region and State Govt should utilize the benefits of the extended special fiscal package to attract fresh investment in various new segments of industry with special focus of creation of additional avenues in development of vendor / ancillary units that may generate additional jobs for local populace.
Associations urged the State Govt to restore and provide competitive edge of the local industrial units more so specifically amongst micro / small units mainly established by the local entrepreneurs through favourable resolution of their pending issues. They wished to apprise Deputy Chief Minister about the plight of local micro / small entrepreneurs whose entire working capital resources have been diverted in meeting the various monetary obligations under the GST regime.
The Associations reiterated the demand to consider to provide equivalent fiscal incentives besides providing 5 percent equivalent of invoice value of their sales within the State to provide fiscal incentive to be at par with VAT remission that existed prior to implementation of GST regime.
Further emphasizing that the State Govt should acknowledge to appreciate the role of local micro / small sector as the single most employment provider, the Associations said that it was high time that State Govt expeditiously takes appropriate steps to protect the jobs of the already employed besides their employer entrepreneurs. Since the working capital resources have already been unproductively blocked and diverted to GST, it ultimately may result in spread in sickness and forced closure of very large number of local micro / small units. This step shall provide existing entrepreneurs to become brand ambassadors for attracting fresh additional investment in the State, the Associations added.