The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said that corporations like SIDCO, SFC, DFC should be reinvigorated to provide the necessary support to the local industries in Kashmir.
“The absence of fully functional offices of important institutions like the SIDBI and NABARD in Kashmir is a cause of concern,” said a statement by Farooq Amin, secretary general of KCCI.
The statement said a meeting was held with stakeholders belonging to the industrial sector which was presided over by Nasir Hamid Khan, senior vice-president, KCCI.
“The local industrial sector is witnessing its worst period because of the withdrawal of support by the Government. The lack of budgetary assistance and abolition of Toll Tax without announcement of any substituting protective mechanism had severely impacted the local industry of Kashmir.”
The statement said members complained that non-adherence to the industrial policy providing for price preference to local units, delayed reimbursements of CGST and SGST.
“Major changes in Government Policies like implementation of GST had resulted in aggravating the stress on the local industries and caused severe capital contraction. The financial institutions have not so far provided the needed support to help the industries tide over this crisis. Due to major accounts being under stress, borrowers are prevented from availing benefits of schemes including the new 20 Lakh Crore package announced by the Central Government as their stressed accounts debar them from qualifying for the guidelines.”
The members raised the issues of disparities in the disbursal of reimbursement vide SRO’s 63, 519 and 521.
“The incentives tended to be more in favour of new units while the existing units were left in the lurch.”
The members suggested that interventions like providing of Working Capital at concessional interest rates, waiver of interest for the period of lockdown, reschedulement of repayment plans, lowering of Power Tariff and waiver of demand charges, reduction of SIDCO/SICOP rental charges, were required to provide breathing space to the local industries.
“Members dealing in the food processing industry stated that the absence of a common Testing Laboratory was creating difficulties in their sector. They stated that price fixation policy by the Government in Jammu and Kashmir had resulting in drying up of fresh investments and deprived the public from premium quality products. They stated that the policy had prevented open competition which would ultimately have benefited the consumers through improved quality products.”
The stakeholders were unanimous about the failure of the single window system and the concept of Ease of doing business and stated that the prolonged gestation period taken in getting various clearances.
They stated that this resulted in loss of critical time which deprived units from fully availing the benefits of industrial policies.