Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 18: The Federation of Chambers of Industries Kashmir (FCIK) today urged that the J&K Bank’s OTS-2022 scheme be extended, giving borrowers more time to repay their loans, and apply to all MSME loans regardless of the limit
The demand was brought up during a meeting in the office of the top industrial authority between representatives of the concerned entrepreneurs and the FCIK team.
The members said that it was heartening to acknowledge that for the first time, a uniform and non-discriminatory scheme was launched by J&K Bank to settle NPA accounts. “However, it was unfortunate that the concerned enterprises could not take advantage of the scheme…”
The members, FCIK said, informed that the enterprises of the Union Territory whose accounts had been declared NPAs should not be treated as willful defaulters.
“They said that frequent business interruptions were mainly responsible for the mess in MSMEs’ asset quality as it overburdened the enterprises with idle establishment cost….,” FCIK said.
As per FCIK, members said that in the endeavour of saving stressful accounts from slipping into NPAs, the bank in the majority of cases had resorted to ever-greening for their interest of curtailing growing NPAs.
The members also complained about the harassment drive launched by the bank against defaulter MSMEs and tarnishing their image.
President of FCIK Mohammad Ashraf Mir assured the members that their issue will be taken up with the bank as well as the Government.
He said that the time constraint in the scheme was coming in the way of its implementation as the enterprises found it almost impossible to generate 50% of the debt within 2 months.
“It was rather difficult to find buyers and realize money for the property of concerned enterprises even though one decided to generate funds through that route,” he said.
FCIK pleaded with the bank authorities not to close the OTS scheme but keep it open till the time some meaningful resolution came out after joint deliberations with the Government.
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