Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, July, 17
In a press conference held at Press Club Jammu, President of Association of Small and Tiny Industries, Harbinder Singh along with Darshan Lal, Ajay Jagotra, I P Singh and Paramjeet Singh highlighted the issues being faced by Micro Industries specifically related to Jammu Region.
Addressing the media, Harbinder Singh mentioned how banks misuse SARFAESI Act provisions for loan recovery. The Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act 2002 is a powerful instrument in the hands of the banks and financial institutions (FIs) as secured creditors. This Act helps them enforce securities held as collateral to loans disbursed by them should such loans turn out as non-performing assets (NPAs) during the currency of the loan without interference from the Courts. Section 13 of the Act gives power to the secured creditor even to evict the tenant. It is our observation that the banks have been overenthusiastic in taking recourse to SAFRAESI Act provisions as a first resort of recovering the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) loans, mostly violating guidelines of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The entire process under the Act involves several factors of fairness and technicalities. During our interactions with the borrowers and banks, we have noticed the banks jumping into coercive actions throwing overboard the due processes. It is surprising that tech-savvy systems of banks have not put in the measured timelines before pressing the red button to put the credit traffic of the MSMEs on halt.
Ajay Jagotra, I P Singh and Paramjeet Singh mentioned that the interest should be waived off by PDD department. It was in the budget announcement 2018-19 of the State Govt with regard to Amnesty Scheme for Industrialists, Small Scale Industries and Sick Industries – waiving off interest, penalty and surcharge on power dues by the State Government. He highlighted that It appears to be like the administrative department of PDD J&K is a sort of government within the government, which is charging Interest on Interest and disconnecting power connections of Small Scale Industries and forcing it to shut down or become Sick Unit. He also request that the demand charges should be removed or rationalized.
Darshan lal mentioned about material components liabilities of the government departments towards Small scale units. There are many pending payments for the material purchased by the Rural development departments, Jammu Municipal Corporation and other Government Departments which is not released yet from the last 2-3 years to the Micro industries due to which many micro industries suffers and we are demanding that the payment of such aforesaid materials should be released as soon as possible to the micro industries so that they will not suffer any more and will be able to streamline there future productions.
The Micro and Small Industries are some of the most labor vigorous as well as productive industries in India.
