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14 more items dereserved

BS Bureau

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has proposed dereservation of 14 items under the small-scale industry sector, including leather goods, shoes and toys, for giving a fillip to expansion and technology upgradation efforts. These export-oriented items were earlier reserved for the SSI sector.

Reiterating the Union government's resolve to protect the SSIs, Sinha, while presenting the Union Budget for 2001-02, announced that loans to the tune of Rs 50 billion would be made available to the sector over the next five years.

The loans to the small-scale sector would be made available through a credit-linked capital subsidy scheme for technology upgradation launched in October last year which envisaged 12 per cent capital subsidy, Sinha said.

However, Sinha announced withdrawal of excise duty exemption of up to Rs 10 million given to the small-scale industries for the items such as cotton yarn, ball bearings and arms and ammunition for private use. He said that exemption given to these three items could be misused.

He said that the new credit guarantee scheme launched in August, 2000, has been provided budgetary support of Rs 1 billion in the current year and the limit of loan without collateral, which was earlier fixed at Rs 1 million, has been raised to Rs 2.5 million under the scheme.

Terming the Budget 'disappointing', Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises said the Budget speech barely supported the SSI policy announced by the Prime Minister last year.

"The Budget is silent on the likely impact of the removal of quantitative restrictions on the SSI sector, FISME secretary general Anil Bharwdwaj said.

Source: Business Standard

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