FCIK Calls For Measures To Improve EODB Index For MSMEs In J&K

Srinagar: The Federation of Chambers of Industries Kashmir (FCIK) has called upon the UT government to re-assess the relevance and requirement of current rules, regulations and compliances in industrial policies and schemes in order to improve ‘Ease of Doing Business’ (EODB) index for MSMEs in J&K as per the parameters suggested by the GOI and the World Bank.

While acknowledging the decisions taken by the UT government in past few years regarding minimizing the human interface by introducing online systems in processing of cases and claims of MSMEs, the FCIK regretted that such wonderful reforms could not achieve desired results due to lack of cohesion at various levels of the administration coupled with complex procedural guidelines.

“The requirement of heaps of irrelevant and unnecessary documents asked for submission for disposal of cases and claims have only resulted in time loss and mental agony of the entrepreneurs, but have also put a question mark on relevance of the very incentives if not disbursed within a timeline, ” a statement from FCIK said.

Exemplifying the cases filed by hundreds of enterprises online for ‘Turnover incentive’ claims for the year 2021-22, FCIK said that these cases had been subjected to pre-disbursal audit and returned to the MSMEs more than a year after filing with mostly unnecessary observations. Under the J&K Industrial Policy 2021-30, Turnover Incentive scheme was one of the incentives provided to MSMEs, however, without any headway till date.

FCIK suggested that the government could make this incentive scheme automatic in tune with the time-tested duty drawback scheme on export of goods. “Like in case of duty draw-back scheme, the incentive was being assessed on the electronic shipping bill stamped by customs and credited automatically in the exporters account, the detail of annual turnover by each MSME in J&K could be obtained from Commercial Taxes department paving way for automatic transfer of the assessed amount under the scheme” FCIK said, adding that this foolproof mechanism with zero error possibility could relieve the entrepreneurs from the burden of submitting unnecessary and time-consuming documents against their claims.

FCIK has sought the intervention of incumbent Chief Secretary to look into the possibilities of such automatic transfer of incentives on the basis of details available with departments and other organisations with very less or no demanding requirements for entrepreneurs.

“Whereas the details required for disbursement of Turnover incentive and GST refunds could be obtained from Commercial taxes department, the interest subvention claims could directly be entertained from the banks and other financial institutions,” FCIK suggested to the CS, adding that such a mechanism would not only simplify regulations for protection of interests of entrepreneurs but would also improve the ranking index of J&K amoung performing states/ UTs in Ease of Doing Business.

FCIK has also invited the attention of the Chief Secretary towards issue of renewal of forest licenses of existing wood based units that were being asked to upload “consent to establish” and “consent to operate” certificates from Pollution Control Board besides many other documents with their renewal applications.

“Hundreds of wood based units established decades back were being asked to produce a certificate that is obtained only once in the lifetime of a unit”, regretted FCIK, adding that the rules, norms and procedures in the UT had to be at par with the policies and procedures of the central government as well as other states."