REVIVAL OF SICK UNITS
LOK SABHA
Financial assistance
to SSIs including for the rehabilitation of sick Small Scale Industries
(SSIs), is provided by the Primary Lending Institutions (PLIs)
including the Commercial Banks. The Union Government does not
provide financial assistance to the States/UTs for rehabilitation
of sick SSIs. The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
has, however, an exclusive Refinance Scheme for the PLIs in respect
of financial assistance extended by them for rehabilitation of
sick SSI units, in addition to covering these units under Refinance
Schemes like Single Window Scheme, National Equity Fund, Mahila
Udyam Nidhi, etc. As per latest data available, SIDBI sanctioned
a sum of Rs. 3.27 crore and Rs. 1.26 crore under Refinance Scheme
for Rehabilitation (RSR) of sick SSI units during 1999-2000 and
2000-01, respectively. The amount disbursed was Rs. 1.48 crore
and Rs. 0.15 crore during these years respectively. SIDBI did
not receive any proposal from PLIs seeking assistance under RSR
during 1999-2000 to 2001-02 for Maharashtra.
The Government is
fully seized of the problem of industrial sickness amongst the
SSI units and has taken various measures to facilitate timely
identification and rehabilitation of potentially viable sick industries
including institutional mechanism in the form of State-level Inter-Institutional
Committees, special rehabilitation cells in banks and State Financial
Institutions. Elaborate guidelines have been issued by the Reserve
Bank of India for extending rehabilitation assistance to eligible
units. Further, based on the recommendations of the Working Group
set up under the Chairmanship of Shri S.S. Kohli, the RBI has
drawn up revised guidelines for rehabilitation of sick SSI units,
which include inter-alia change in the definition of sick SSI
units, norms for deciding on their viability, concessional finance,
etc. The RBI has circulated the revised guidelines on 16th
January, 2002 to all the Scheduled Commercial banks for implementation.
This information
was given by Shri Tapan Sikdar, Minister of State for Small Scale
Industries and Development of North Eastern Region in a written
reply to a question by Shri Ashok N. Mohol in Lok Sabha today.
