'Initiate exit policy for plastic industries'

The government should initiate an exit policy for plastic industries to bail them out following plastic ban, Directorate of MSME Director S Ziyaullah said.

He was speaking at an interactive session on the topic ‘Food Processing, Agri Policy, and Labour Wage Code 2019’, organised by Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (KASSIA), at District Small Industries Association.

Ziyaullah said the interactive session was organised to understand the problems encountered by the entrepreneurs of micro, small and medium enterprises in the field.

“Once the problems are discussed, the government will find it easy to formulate the budgetary provisions for medium and small scale industries. KASSIA will come up with the list on the solutions for problems and submit the proposal to the government immediately after the completion of all the interactive sessions in the districts across the state”.

The participants raised the problems faced by aspiring industrialists in obtaining loans from banks, conditions put forth in the appointments of company sectary, the problems faced by the cashew industrialists, APMC and KSFC; increased interest rate among others.

Sudhir Nayak, who owns a cashew nut processing factory, said that the import duty was high and custom officials from NMPT in Mangaluru were charging high import duty.

Ramesh Kini, who owns a plastic industry, said that plastic ban had severely affected his business. There are more than 80 plastic industries in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district.

He alleged that the government only banned the plastic. But it has not announced any sort of alternative solution for the loss incurred by the plastic manufacturing industries. Kini insisted that there should be proper exit policy created for the industrialists in plastic industry. There are also several employees dependent on the industry set up, he said.

Ziyaullah said that government would consider rehabilitation policy which would include time constraints. He insisted that exit policy should be considered by the government to safeguard the interest of the plastic manufacturing industries. He said that the issues would be raised with both state and Central governments. This will help the government to formulate industrialist-friendly policies, he added.