Beyond Deadline Govt Should Monitor Delayed Payments Process

After Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman fixed October 15 as the deadline for central Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to clear overdue payments to MSME vendors and exhorted them to front-load capital expenditure, the experts opine that monitoring is a must to ensure the payments are done.

Experts and veteran MSME Entrepreneurs expressed their views by adding that monitoring is must to keep a watch that what is being done and what else can be done.

Aggrawal said, ''Definitely, the MSMEs will get some relief from this move. If the sector gets even half the amount stuck with the Public Sector Units (PSUs), it will still be a great relief for them.”

The PSUs should be asked to provide the data by March 31 that up to what amount has been cleared by October 15 from their end.

Beyond just a deadline date to perform these tasks of clearing dues to vendors or MSMEs, the most significant thing is that government also need to monitor them rather than only announcing dates.

The entrepreneur, meanwhile, wondered that how will this process work, whether the PSUs will clarify this themselves or they will be reminded by the Finance Ministry.

On Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who reviewed capital spending programmes with heads of central public sector enterprises, said state-owned companies have also been asked to set up a portal by October 15 where service providers, vendors and contractors can track bills and payments so that liquidity crunch is mitigated.