PHDCCI Delegation calls on RBI Governor

No.PR-10

April 22, 2019

New Delhi

PHDCCI Delegation calls on RBI Governor

A delegation led by Mr Rajeev Talwar, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry along with Mr D K Aggarwal, Senior Vice President, PHD Chamber and Mr Sanjay Aggarwal, Vice President, PHD Chamber met Hon’ble Governor of RBI, Shri Shaktikanta Das at the RBI headquarters in Mumbai today and discussed concerns of the Chamber related to the growth of the economy, exports, liquidity , MSMEs, NBFCs, Affordable Housing and Real Estate sector.

PHD Chamber in its submission has urged RBI to increase the limit for classifying over dues of MSMEs to 180 days from the current level of 90 days as working capital cycle of MSMEs keeps prolonging due to delays in realisation of their bills/receivables, said Mr Rajeev Talwar.

PHD Chamber has also requested that at-least one year period should be considered for eligibility of MSMEs’ stressed and NPA accounts for eligibility under the restructuring scheme. All such Accounts which turned into defaulters or became NPAs after 1st January, 2018 should be covered under the policy of RBI for being eligible for restructuring, said Mr Sanjay Agarwal .

It was also recommended that the loans given by banks to NBFCs for the purpose of on-lending to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises should be treated as indirect finance to MSMEs eligible for classification under the Priority Sector lending of banks, said Mr . D . K. Agrawal, Sr. Vice-President.

The industry body said that infrastructure financing should ideally be carried out by specialist players like Infrastructure Finance Companies (IFCs). IFCs should be allowed to deploy a minimum of 50% of their total assets in infrastructure loans, while the rest may be deployed towards financing allied and ancillary activities for infrastructure projects, which are essentially non-infra in nature.

PHD Chamber said that IFCs should be allowed to issue tax-free bonds and on-tap resource mobilisation through issuance of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) to retail investors. IFCs should be allowed to issue Performance Guarantees / Sureties / Bid Bonds and the same should be accepted at par with the bank guarantees.

PHDCCI in its submission has also suggested further cut in the repo rate in the coming quarters.

Ends.

Koteshwar Prasad Dobhal

Consultant (PR)