Amaravati: YSR Navodayam scheme launched

Amaravati: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy formally launched YSR Navodayam scheme which provides financial benefits to the MSMEs under One Time Restructuring (OTR), on Thursday at his residence at Tadepalli in Guntur district. In the first phase, around 3600 MSMEs will get benefited out of the total 86,000.

In fact, the Reserve Bank of India has launched this OTR scheme to boost the MSME sector in the country in the month of January this year. The state government is implementing it now.

The scheme will benefit Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sectors in a big way, informed Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath in a press conference after the launch of the Navodayam.

He said that the government will release the subsidies to the MSMEs based on the priority. Those who qualified under the scheme will get the benefits on priority basis, he added.

To execute the scheme effectively, the government has ordered to conduct meetings every month in the districts with the concerned authorities and MSME entrepreneurs. The Minister said that these meetings will be conducted under the chairmanship of the district collector and includes District Coordination Committee, District Industries Promotion Committee members, and the Bankers and their coordination. According to the Minister, the agenda of these monthly meetings is to individually identify the problems of MSMEs.

The government will support and monitor the implementation of Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) One Time Restructuring (OTR) of MSME loans so that all the eligible MSME units are covered for OTR of accounts up to March 31, 2020.

Though RBI notification has come in January, the previous government did not make use of the OTR and this government has taken it up, he said.

MSMEs in the country contribute 8 percent of the country's GDP. In Andhra Pradesh, we have 1,00,629 MSMEs with an investment of Rs 30,528 crore and employing 11 lakh people. About 85,070 MSME units are eligible for the OTR that is worth of Rs 3493 crores.

The Minister said that the MSME sector is the second-largest employment provider after agriculture in our country which is the reason why Chief Minister has given it importance as it provides employment to youth.

The previous government in 2014-15 released Rs 2000 crores on a selective basis while we are giving priority to those who are under OTR. he said.

The government will reimburse 50 percent up to a maximum of Rs 2 lakhs of the auditor's fee. MSMEs have to pay a huge amount of fee to the auditors for the preparation of the Techno-Economic Viability (TEV) report. Under Dr.YSR Navodayam scheme the government will reimburse 50 percent (not exceeding Rs 2 lakhs) of the fee amount, said the Minister.