The financial thread of the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is so fragile that even a small jerk would cause damage to it and as the size of their enterprise is small to medium , the cycle of sale and service proceeds should move without any humps and impediments . It is , however, surprising that several of these units should face severe financial crunch due to withholding of payments by the Government that are due to them on account of work done under Saubaghiya Scheme of the Union Government under which, providing electricity to each and every household is aimed at. The UT Government owes to these units a whooping amount of Rs.20 crore which is pending for the last one year. The interesting part of the matter is that the funds for Centrally Sponsored Schemes for which procurement of material was made from the MSMEs under reference , have already been released by the Central Government to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only that , even these funds have already been transferred to the Jammu Power Distribution Corporation Limited as well but they have not released the payments to the concerned MSMEs. Reasons or grounds of not releasing the payments too have not been made known. All such items indented by the Government and supplied by the unit holders have been procured by them from markets and most of them not having been produced or manufactured by them, deserves to be seen to be realised as to how timely the payments should have been made to them.
The usual alibi of the officialdom of not complying with the usual formalities etc by their creditor suppliers is nowhere to be seen relevant in the instant case as formalities like floating of e-tenders , purchase committee meetings for fixing of supply rates, issuance of formal purchase orders, executing of agreement and third party inspection have not only been followed but strictly complied with. Following this, orders were placed for different items which were provided by these units to the Central Store Division on emergency basis. Since strict timeline had been fixed by the Union Government for electrification of households, the items for which orders were placed, had to be supplied as fast as possible which the concerned entrepreneurs managed. Little did they anticipate that instead of appreciating their response of supplying the material quickly, the Government would withhold their payments of Rs.20 crore without any plausible ground.
These units are from both the capital cities which supplied items like power distribution transformers, conductors, poles, cables and other items to the Central Stores Division of the Jammu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (JPDCL) after the formalities of e-tender and third party inspections were completed. It is to be realised that the financial fragility of the MSMEs which largely depend on Bank finances , have to register and accordingly show consistent increase in sales and services proceeds turnover and keep the transactions of receipts and payments going , keep servicing the advances facilities regularly, which are terms and conditions of granting of such facilities by the financing Banks to keep their such asset accounts in order and not see turning bad. That part of the importance of releasing the payments to these units in time should have been visualised and thus payments released. We hope the JPCDL would look into the issue urgently and release the pending payments or advise the cogent reasons due to which the same were withheld so that those reasons could be duly addressed.
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