The SMEs and the Tiny Sector deserve Help, right Now

Before the 1991 movement toward liberation, the small, medium and even the tiny sector of India was the main employer and revenue earner in India. Long before the large companies began exporting, the SMEs and the tiny sector were planting the Indian tricolour in far away lands.

And yet, they received, mostly, neglect and empty promises from both the central and the state governments.

Large companies squeezed the SMEs and the helpless tiny sector bled, in big fish imposing uneconomic pricing and the long delays in payment of their dues. Between the various departments of the State and Central governments, and the large corporations, PSU’s not excluded, many SMEs and tiny sector units were driven to bankruptcy.

In these final months of 2008, India has economic problems, not necessarily of our making, and there is a credit squeeze. The big business is increasingly cozy wining and dining terms with the bankers, government officials and ministers. So the Big Business will get funding they need, not necessarily deserve. Most of them, of course, have the option of bringing back to the country the money they have, in the 60s to the 90s, illegally parked in safe havens abroad mostly the money from over invoicing imports, and under invoicing subsidised exports.

In these peculiar circumstances, the CII, the FICCI, the IBA, and others similar bodies must ensure that the government and the banks give SMEs and the tiny sector a hand – fast processing of loans on easier terms.

And do that in a manner, which confers deserved dignity on this sector, that has been for long either neglected or treated in a step-motherly manner.