Port Blair, Nov 18: The Member of Parliament of Andaman and Nicobar Islands Shri. Kuldeep Rai Sharma has requested the Chief Secretary of Andaman and Nicobar Administration to sanction pending subsidy cases under MSME capital subsidy scheme.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Secretary the Member of Parliament mentioned that the subsidy under Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) capital subsidy scheme promulgated by the Andaman and Nicobar Administration on 25th October 2017 vide Gazette notification no. 263 to support the unemployed youth and other jobless youngsters to establish their own business.
He pointed out that in order to avail the MSME scheme, many unemployed youth of these islands had taken loans from various banks of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and started their own enterprises. Most of them have invested in the tourism industry.
He mentioned that in the year 2020, the COVID -19 Pandemic hit the entire nation including Andaman & Nicobar Islands which lasted for nearly 2 years and the running business of all these unemployed youth were shut down for most of these 2 years.
The Member of Parliament added that apart from the above, since March 2022 the maintenance of the airfield of Port Blair airport was started which lasted for 3 months and is now restarting to continue till March 2023 end.
As a result of this, the tourism industry and the associated youths have been under severe financial distress due to dent in business and those unemployed youths who have taken loans are unable to even pay their EMIS, he added.
He further pointed out that consequently, the interest of such loans has increased manifold, which has now become a severe financial burden on their shoulders.
“The subsidy applied under the MSME scheme by the business youngsters are lying pending in the Directorate of Industries since over 2 years and are under examination. Moreover, it is learnt that the last subsidy was sanctioned several years ago and thereafter no subsidy has been granted to eligible firms,” he mentioned.
Shri. Kuldeep. Rai Sharma added that now a few of the cases who had applied for subsidy under the aforesaid scheme have been cleared by the Sub- committee constituted by the administration and forwarded to the Scrutiny committee under the chairmanship of Secretary (Industries).
Therefore, he requested the Chief Secretary to grant subsidy to all the pending applications on priority and the entitled subsidy as per rules at the earliest so that the loan taken by the applicants can be refunded to the maximum extent.
