Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: MSME and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has assured retailers, engineers, architects and town planners to expeditiously look at registering them as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) engaged in employment generation. According to a statement by the MSME Ministry, the minister assured the “Retailers Association of India and Practicing Engineers, Architects and Town Planners Association (PEATA India) that their request for registering as MSMEs will be examined expeditiously.” This is required to be explored from the perspective of these associations being employment creators and whether benefits including insurance, medical, pension, etc. can be provided to workers, the minister said in a webinar with the retail and architects and town planners.
Apart from registering them MSMEs, the two associations suggested the minister to allow malls resume operations with necessary safety precautions in place, e-commerce operations for non-essential items, relief in rentals for retailers, an extension of moratorium period to nine months, reduction in the bank interest rate from 10 per cent to 4-5 per cent, applying GST on receivables only etc. Gadkari urged engineers, architects and town planners to look at ways to decongest overcrowded cities and participate in the development of rural, tribal and backward regions particularly along the Green Expressways such as the new Delhi -Mumbai Expressway that runs through such regions.
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The minister in multiple webinars under the lockdown so far has addressed multiple industry associations and trade bodies over the opportunity to tap into during the Covid-19 crisis along with attracting foreign investments and leveraging the world’s “hatred” towards China due to the virus outbreak. Referring to Japan’s economic package to be provided to businesses exiting China, Gadkari in an interaction last month with Indian students overseas said, “I feel that we should think on that and we will concentrate on it. We will open the Indian scenario for that. We will give the clearances and everything to them and attract foreign investment.”