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No helping hand from State: industry

Last Updated 30 August 2009, 18:03 IST

 The industry, expressing disappointment over the lack of inaction from the State government, said its high time that the government brought out measures to help industries. “The industry might be sniffing revial, but we are yet to be out of the slowdown trend,” sources said, adding “only the Centre and the Reserve Bank’s policies have helped us while the Sate has failed in lending an helping hand.

The government, however, has stressed that there has been a positive intervention in implementing the Centre’s policies and that it has been working towards more.

Peenya Industrial Association (PIA) Joint Treasurer & Co-ordinator D T Venkatesh said “Despite the industries going through one of its worse phases, the State government has not spelt out one single measure, or a stimulus. That shows its commitment to the industry.”

Liquidity crunch

Sources from the Bangalore Chambers of Industry & Commerce (BCIC) and Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) agreed and said “Even when we were struggling for liquidity, there was no measure, when we wanted waivers also there was no response from the government.”

However, Director of industries & Commerce Raj Kumar Khatri told Deccan Herald “The State has been working towards helping the industry. We have cleared subsidies worth Rs 20 lakh, that were pending since 2001 on a fast-track basis and will clear subsidies worth Rs 70 core more in the next few days.”

Echoing the same, Minister for Large  and Medium Scale Industries Murugesh R Nirani said that the as on July 31, 43,777 medium and small scale enterprises (MSME) accounts worth Rs 119823.33 lakh have been restructured in the State.

Assessment of the district-wise data of the restructured accounts finds that Bangalore Urban district has got accounts worth Rs 52623 lakh restructured, making it the highest, while Dharwad and Bellary come second and third with Rs 27366 lakh and Rs 7644 lakh respectively restructured. (read table for top 8 districts)

Beneficiaries of restructuring

* B’lore Urban: Rs. 52623 lakh
* Dharwad: Rs. 27366 lakh
* Bellary: Rs.7644.80 lakh
* Koppal: Rs 5861.88 lakh
* Belgaum:Rs.5024.87 lakh
* D-Kannada:Rs.4122.39 lakh
* Kolar:Rs.3542.06 lakh
* Haveri: Rs.1997.76 lakh

RBI directive

Dismantling this claim, the industry said that all this is only implementation of the RBI directive by banks and the State cannot take credit for it. “Even as many nationalised banks have restructured loans and have helped us, none of the State financial institutions have even reduced their interest rates,” sources from PIA said. adding that if the State wanted to do something it could have directed its institutions also to follow similar path. Talking of the subsidies, they said “it must be noted that these are pending subsidies and it is the government’s duty to clear it. It is not a special measure.” Further, they opine that the government’s proposed SME stimulus must be put to effect soon to have any impact.

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(Published 30 August 2009, 18:03 IST)

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