Coimbatore: Spinning mills seek government support to fight recession

COIMBATORE: The South India Spinners Association (SISPA) demanded that the state and central governments act immediately to give special attention to the textile sector to protect it from the impact of economic slowdown.

Following a general body meeting of the association, N Murugesan, president of SISPA said, “Through the Reserve Bank of India, the Central government should enable banks to prioritise loans to the MSME sector at the lowest possible interest. Banks should relax the norms for non-performing assets (NPA). Similarly, the RBI should relax norms for the MSME sector to utilize the cash credit (CC) to ten per cent margin. In case, cash credit is eroded, it should be converted into a long term loan without any additional collateral security.”

He noted that as a special gesture, government should extend the moratorium for one year to the MSME sector, considering the current economic slowdown. He said, “the present cotton market price for 30 mm per candy is Rs 42,000. However, the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) auction quoted price per candy is Rs 49,000. The CCI's higher prices are affecting market sentiment. Government should ensure a stable raw material price throughout the year by distributing subsidy directly into the farmer's account.”

According to him, the GST slab of five per cent on cotton yarn and other items in the cotton textile value chain are uniform and he urged to extend it to the manmade fibre (MMF) sector by reducing GST to five per cent.

He also urged state government to give relief to the MSME spinning industry's long standing request of removal of the one per cent market committee cess on cotton and waste cotton.