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Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday met with representatives of various industry associations in Tamil Nadu including micro and small enterprises, textiles, handloom, powerloom, hotel, poultry and weavers and industry chambers in Chennai.
“The Finance Minister met with members of 17 different associations, divided into four groups. Textile association members discussed the recent GST rate hike to 12 per cent, the poultry associations spoke about soybean import, while Silk Sarees Association from Kancheepuram and Arani sought separate HSN code.
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The Hotels Association wanted clarity on inverted duty structure. MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) associations such as Codissia also made their plea. FM patiently listened to all members’ representations. The meeting lasted for an hour,” K Annamalai, BJP’s Tamil Nadu President who was present in the meeting told BusinessLine .
Representatives of MSME associations included the Tamil Nadu Small & Tiny Industries Association, Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association and Indian Chamber of Commerce.
Raw material costs
“They called us yesterday to meet the Finance Minister and we were given 10 minutes to brief her about our demands. We presented a memorandum on behalf of the MSME segment. We were also asked to speak for a few minutes and we explained about the impact of the raw material price hike. Since MSMEs are short of funds, we requested for conversion of the existing working capital into term loans. Also, we requested for fresh capital support as adequate money in the hands of MSMEs will help them stay in business and contribute to the growth of the economy,” a member of an MSME association told BusinessLine .
GST issues
In its memorandum to the Finance Minister, Codissia presented GST related issues. They included increase in turnover criteria for registration and taxability to ₹1 crore from ₹40 lakh, relaxation in supply of services under Composition scheme, Collection of Tax under the Composition Scheme by Service Providers, GST rate cuts from 18 per cent for cement and automobiles, fixing of two-slab GST rates for all commodities and reduction in tax liability for bad debts, among others.
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