Comments
Former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said that in the absence of a clear signal of assistance from the Centre, the private sector will be forced to resort to large scale retrenchments and lay-offs.
The Congress urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce a package to protect the wages, salaries and pay cheques of about 11 crore people working in the MSMEs sector.
He said workers are waiting with bated breath to know if they will be paid their salaries/wages for the month of April. “There is palpable tension and rising uncertainty among the working people of India and their families,” he said.
How to survive?
Citing the annual report of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), he said 11 crore people are engaged in 6.3 crore MSMEs. He asked: “Most of them would not have worked a single day in the month of April because the entire country was in a lockdown imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic. How will these people feed themselves and their families without an income?”
He said the businesses have had no sales this month and their payments to their vendors are also stuck, leaving the vendors also in distress. "The time to make bold decisions to save the MSMEs is now. If businesses do not see hope, they will decide to close," the former Union Finance Minister warned.
Relief needed
Chidambaram said it is bewildering that there has been absolutely no financial package or assistance announced for businesses since the onset of Covid-19. “The Government may have the luxury of time, but the MSMEs do not. They need to know right away whether they will be helped to stay afloat and thereby pay salaries/wages to those dependent on these businesses,” he said.
He reiterated that the Centre should provide ₹1 lakh crore wage protection assistance to help MSMEs pay wages and salaries for the month of April, and another ₹1 lakh crore credit guarantee fund for MSMEs that will help them to go to the banks and borrow money.
He suggested waiver of employers’ contributions to the employees provident fund (EPF) and employees state insurance (ESI), on a temporary basis, for the next three months.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.