Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 2: Federation of Industries Jammu (FOIJ) has urged upon the Union Government and UT Administration to provide gross GST Incentives on the investment of Plant and machinery to the existing units who opt for the substantial expansion and restore purchase and price preference to the local MSME units for the supply of goods to the J&K Government departments for their survival.
While drawing the attention of Lt Governor Manoj Sinha the Federation Chairman Lalit Mahajan said that to provide employment opportunities to local youths, a process was started in 1960 with the establishment of Small Industrial Estates in Jammu Division and Kashmir Division and subsequently Industrial Estates was established in Gangyal, Bari Brahmana, Samba, Kathua and Udhampur and also in Kashmir Division. The Govt also provided land to local as well as to outside Investors to invest in the Industrial Sector here to create job opportunities for the local people with the grant of Fiscal Incentives for new units and existing units under substantial expansion by State/Central Government from time to time keeping in mind the locational disadvantages, land locked State, additional cost of incoming raw material and dispatch of finished goods to other parts of the country, limited marketing avenues , surrounded by hostile neighbours like Pakistan and China and other factors. The Industrial units were running smoothly till July 2019 with the price and purchase preference for local MSME Units for the supply of goods to State Govt departments.
After the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, Jammu & Kashmir State has been bifurcated in to Union Territory by Govt of India and the Industrial Sector of Jammu has welcomed the move with the hope that massive Industrial investment will come to the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir for economic growth and providing the job opportunities to local youth. But after August 2019 and the applicability of GFR of Govt of India the first set back has been faced by the Local MSME Units supplying the goods to State Govt Departments with the abolishing of price and purchase preference which was applicable to MSME sector previously and all the purchases has been routed through Gem Portal resulting drastic decline in the sale graph of local MSME Units who supply the goods to State Govt Departments and also through SICOP for the Items reserved for the SSI Sector.
In 2021 Govt of India has notified new Central Sector Scheme 2021 with the grant of Fiscal Incentives in the shape of reimbursement of 300% Gross GST equivalent to the value of investment in the Plant and Machinery but the said Incentive is not applicable to existing units as on 31-3-2021 on the substantial expansion/ additional items/change in the line of activity whereas in all the previous Notifications issued by Govt of India in 2002, 2012, 2017 the Fiscal Incentives has been granted at par with the new units who opt for the substantial expansion with the additional items/change in the line of activity and due to denial of Gross GST on the substantial expansion to existing units, in future the such units may be at stake due to uncertainty prevails in the mind of the Existing Units which may be resulting into the mass scale retrenchment of workers in near future.
Mahajan further said that for the survival of existing MSME Sector of J&K, it is the need of the hour to provide the gross GST incentive on the investment of plant and machinery to existing units who opt for the substantial expansion, additional items/change in the line of activity and to restore the purchase and price preference to local MSME units for the supply of goods to State Govt Departments for the survival of existing units.
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