Chennai: Bank loans tough for small and medium industries

Chennai: In the past three months more than 15,000 small and medium scale companies have represented to the All India Manufacturers Organisation (AIMO) complaining that their loan process has been delayed without any valid reasons and the current turmoil with the banking sectors is making matters worse for the industrialists, said K.E. Raghunaathan, national president, All India Manufacturers Organisation. 

There is nothing wrong in arresting the defaulters of corporate companies, but the law enforcers fail to gauge the ripple effect it leaves affecting the other stakeholders. Commenting on the recent Nirav Modi and Rotamac scams, Raghunaathan said that both the incidents have crippled the stakeholders related to these companies. 

Thousands of employees have lost a job, sub-dealers have lost their franchise and there are payments pending to several crores for outsourced contractors and exporters. Under these circumstances, a third party should operate both the companies so that the loans can be tracked back and the stakeholders are not affected.

It’s high time that the centre consults the industrial organisations like AIMO, CII and FICCI so that there are experts who can advise the government and bankers on how to get the loans repaid. 

The defaulters should be kept away from the company and at the same time company should be operated as these are brands built over years of hardship and professional commitment and there is every possibility for the revival like the case of Satyam bailed out by Mahindra, he said.

He also urged the media and the politicians not to politicise the bank loan defaults as it makes matters worse, wiping out the economy and the orders of the company. 

Besides the investigations and the arrests, there have to be solutions to these companies and banks, the authorities are not working on these lines, he rued.
“A private real estate companies paid loans for eight years of the total 
12 year tenure when the company defaulted loans during the 9th year, the owner was arrested and now the booked flats are not sold and the bank loans are pending. 

Like this, there are several examples in Chennai and there is no strategy from the state or the centre to address such genuine cases and not every time the company can survive the insolvency resolving process and they need some redressal mechanism,” explained a realtor associated with CREDAI.