Demonetisation effect: Coimbatore SMEs knock at Centre's doors

These Associations employ over 4 lakh people in and around the Manchester of South India

A delegation from the industrial town of Coimbatore in southern Tamil Nadu met Union ministers at Delhi on Friday and gave a memorandum on the issues faced by medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) after the demonetisation of high value currency notes.

V Sundaram, president, Coimbatore District Small Scale Industries Association; Vanitha Mohan of The Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Coimbatore; and K K Rajan of the Southern Indian Engineering Manufacturers Association had taken representations from a little more than 50 industrial and trade associations of the city. 

Most of those represent SMEs. These associations employ about 400,000 people in and around the city. They met Kalraj Mishra, the cabinet minister for SMEs, Giriraj Singh, his deputy, and officials at the Prime Minister’s Office. 

The delegation said their members would, at the earliest, open bank accounts for their workers but sought time due to the complexities involved, including availability of PAN card, Aadhaar card and others. They said time was also needed to create awareness on the benefits of cashless transactions and sought an amnesty against Provident Fund omissions of the past — they want the PF authorities not to impose retrospective levies for such omissions. 

The associations also want service charges on the usage of credit and debit cards to be removed, saying this was a concern expressed by workers.

These apart, they want the distribution of currency across the nation to be equalised, with more allocation to industrial hubs like Coimbatore. “Even workmen whose salaries are remitted into their accounts are not able to withdraw money, due to shortage of funds at both banks and ATMs,” said the members. 

They also want the withdrawal limit to be enhanced to Rs 2 lakh a week for enterprises, to tide over the present cash crunch. It had, they said, also had a big impact on labour availability.