In a move to check the rising cases of misuse of Union government’s International Cooperation Scheme (ICS) by some businessmen, who avail subsidy numerous times during the year for participating in trade fairs and exhibitions in foreign countries against one-time rule under this scheme, the MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) Ministry has decided to tighten a noose on these traders by keeping tabs on their international visits and feeding the data online to track the records of how and when a businessman availed the subsidy under ICS.
This was disclosed by Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) Ravindra Nath who was in Ludhiana for an interaction with the industrialists recently.
Nath also made it clear that Centre’s new data bank portal for maintaining the data of micro small and medium industrial units of the country www.msmedatabank.in will not only help in ensuring that the benefit of the government schemes is passed on to the eligible industrialists, but at the same time will also keep a watch on those misusing government subsidies.
Though Nath didn’t mention by when the system will be fully in place, he confirmed that as per rules a member of a business association can avail the subsidy just once in year.
It is pertinent to mention here that the industrialists present in the meeting with Nath had raised this issue before him and had brought to his notice the cases wherein some businessmen from the city were travelling abroad numerous times during a year under the banner of different business associations to attend trade fairs and exhibitions and claiming subsidies amounting to lakhs per visit.
Rajnish Ahuja, President of the Focal Point Welfare Association, said, “It is an appreciable step on the part of government. Finally a mechanism is being put in place to check the misuse of the subsidies. It’s high time that the MSME department does an analysis and makes public the list of those people who have claimed the subsidy multiple times in a year. We are not against the subsidy being given under the ICS scheme, but I think a stringent check is needed so that only the genuine businessmen get benefit of this scheme rather than the same person claiming it multiple times in a year under disguise of different association.”
Source: Times of India
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