Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 24: The 30th Empowered Committee meeting on MSMEs in J&K was held at SKICC here today.
The meeting was chaired by D Sethy, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India, Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a gathering of the controlling heads of the major banks, Government officers and members of various Industries’ Associations of the State, the Regional Director, explained that the main purpose of holding the periodic EC meetings was to facilitate an accelerated growth of MSMEs in the State and also to remove bottlenecks which hinder the smooth flow of credit to the sector. Besides, such a forum also afforded an opportunity of direct communications / interactions between various stakeholders.
Mr Sethy highlighted the role being played by the MSMEs at national and international level, and lamented that the large potential available in the sector was yet to be tapped in the State, as only a small number of MSME units were availing of finance from the formal institutional sources and majority of them were outside it. Despite such an exclusion, the MSMEs were greatly contributing to employment generation, exports, traditional handicraft & handloom industry of the State.
A detailed presentation on the credit flow scenario in the State relating to the MSME sector, as at the close of March 31, 2015, was made by R B Gupta, AGM, RBI. The gathering was informed that the advances to Micro Small Enterprises (MSE) sector increased from Rs 8218.84 crore as on March 31, 2014 to Rs 10014.64 crore as on March 31, 2015, registering an increase of 21.85% growth on year to year basis. Further, the number of accounts at 240863 as on March 31, 2014 also witnessed an increase of 14.17% over last year and stood at 274997. The banks collectively surpassed target of 10% growth in physical and 20% growth in financial terms.
AK Mattu, GM, RBI, Vibhav Swaroop, DGM, SIDBI, S.K.Bhat, President SLBC, Mohamad Amin, President J&K Bank, Nazim Khan, Director Industries, Kashmir, Varinder Sharma, Director MSME (DI), Director Handloom, Director Handicrafts, MD SFC, senior officials from other major banks like SBI, PNB, HDFC, ICICI, Canara Bank, Afaq Qadri and Mushtaq Wani, representatives from Industry Associations & Chamber of Commerce respectively, participated in the meeting.
Follow our WhatsApp channel