Awareness campaign on MSME facilitation council

Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, February 18

Industrialists of the city are trying to make others aware about the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) facilitation council in the district which have been established to help small-scale industrialists to get the payments from other parties. Recently, Jalandhar Chamber of Industries and Commerce held a seminar on awareness regarding MSME facilitation council. The seminar was chaired by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Varinder Kumar Sharma who is the chairman of the council.

General secretary of Jalandhar Chamber of Industries and Commerce told about the working of the council. He said: Around 8 to10 cases have been disposed off until now. Otherwise as per the information, more than 200 cases of industrialists, related to small and micro industrialists, are lying pending with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) council. Some cases even dates back to 2011 and 2012.”

Notably, earlier there used to be a headquarters of the council in Chandigarh. But after the formation of the council at the district-level, the cases pertaining to Jalandhar have got transferred here. The council was started in the district in December last year. The council comprises of five members, which includes the Deputy Commissioner as its Chairman; General Manager (GM), District Industry Centre (DIC), as member secretary; an advocate, a Lead District Manager (LDM); and an industrialist.

The council has been established to solve the matters of small scale industrialists and to help them get payments from other parties, in case the latter do not return their due amount (payments). Shant Kumar, one of the members of the council said: As per the Act, the cases must be get solved within 90 days but it was not happening right now due to various reasons.”

He said as per the Act, if the buyer failed to return Rs 50,000 out of Rs 1 lakh, he would have to pay interest to the party concerned along with the pending payment.

There is no court fee for the recovery of the payments needed in the council.

It was discussed during the seminar that in the next six months, the remaining cases will be disposed off.