
Task Force suggestions to boost MSMEs lauded
President of Chambers Potluri Bhaskara Rao and general secretary B Rajasekhar in a statement here on Sunday stated that the Chambers, for the past few years, has been supporting and promoting the most potential sectors that were now identified by the Task Force. They recalled that the Chambers submitted similar policy inputs from time-to-time to the government such as the development of sector-specific clusters across the State, development of IT/AI hub in Amaravati, industrial parks with plug and play facilities, electronics clusters, food processing parks and clusters, common facilities in existing food processing parks among others.
The MSME sector has been going through many issues for the past 6 to 7 years on account of the COVID pandemic, economic slowdown, and global uncertainties. Many units belonging to the sub-sectors such as textiles, food processing, ferro alloys, foundries, granites and others are either sick or on the verge of bankruptcy.
They are facing various challenges such as rising production costs on account of high fuel, power, and logistics costs. They recommended to the government to provide financial support to MSMEs during natural calamities through insurance policies as adopted by Tamil Nadu. Such policies can help mitigate the impact of events like floods, earthquakes, or storms, ensuring business continuity and financial stability. They also requested the State government to support the MSME sector by releasing the long-pending incentives to MSMEs and also ensure timely release of incentives in future.
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Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Take steps to ease tariff pain of exporters, CM urges PM
Chennai: In the wake of the US imposing an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods, chief minister M K Stalin urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce special financial relief measures for exporters. In a letter to Modi, Stalin said, "To provide immediate relief, Union govt needs to consider introducing a special interest subvention scheme for all exporters affected by tariffs to improve liquidity and reduce cost burdens and accelerate Free Trade Agreements and bilateral arrangements to offset high-tariff market risks." Considering the scale of the problem, a special financial relief package including a moratorium on principal repayment, similar to the one implemented during COVID is necessary to support exporters, Stalin said. You Can Also Check: Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai | Gold Rates Today in Chennai | Silver Rates Today in Chennai "While 20% of India's total goods exports of $433.6 billion were to the US, 31% of TN's $52.1 billion goods exports went there. "This higher dependency on the US market clearly implies that tariff impact on TN will be disproportionately greater than for most other Indian states," Stalin said. TN accounted for 28% of India's textile exports in 2024-2025, the largest contributor among all Indian states, he said. "Especially, our textile sector employs nearly 75 lakh people and with aproposed 50% tariff, an estimated 30 lakh jobs are at immediate risk. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo To mitigate this crisis, it is essential to address structural issues that have long hindered our export competitiveness," he added. Appreciating efforts of the Union govt to achieve a mutually beneficial trade agreement with the US, Stalin said, "Textile sector urgently needs support in two aspects correction of the GST inverted duty structure for the man-made fiber value chain by bringing the entire chain under a 5% GST slab, and exemption of import duty on all varieties of cotton." Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.


Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Meghalaya only state in country to achieve consistent growth rate of about 10% over 3 consecutive yrs post Covid: CM
Shillong: Meghalaya 'stands tall as the second fastest-growing state' in the country, just after Tamil Nadu, and the growth rate for 2024-25 at constant prices is 9.66%, which is double the state's growth rate of 5.1% in 2018 when the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance Govt came to power, CM Conrad K Sangma said in the course of his eighth consecutive Independence Day speech at the Polo Grounds here on Friday. "Meghalaya is the only state in the country which has achieved a consistent growth rate of about 10% over three consecutive years post the Covid pandemic. How did Meghalaya transform from a state growing at 5% to a state growing at 10%? Meghalaya's growth rate in 2015-16 was 2%, 2016-17 was 5%, 2017-18 was 4%, 2018-19 was 5%, and 2019-20 was 5%. In contrast, the growth rates in 2022-23 were 10%, 2023-24 was 11%, and 2024-25 is 10%. This achievement is the result of years of persistence, careful planning, and the hard work of the Govt," said the CM, who also holds the finance portfolio. He said after spending four days in Meghalaya last month, meeting farmers, youth, entrepreneurs, women, and community members, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman described the state as a "shining example of a confident and self-reliant India". The CM also expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had recently recognised Meghalaya's development model, describing it as a "blueprint for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat ". The CM said similar sentiments were echoed by the chairman of 16th Finance Commission, development partners from World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and leaders from the private sector. "We are at a midway point in the 15-year journey, from 2018 to 2032, when we commemorate 60 years of Meghalaya's statehood. In 2018, our GDP was less than Rs. 30,000 crore. In seven and a half years, we have doubled the GDP to Rs 59,626 crore. In the next seven and a half years, we will more than double our GDP from the current Rs 60,000 crore to Rs 1,40,000 crore. This increased GDP will lead to more jobs for our youth, more opportunities for every citizen, and make Meghalaya one of the top 10 states in the country," the CM said. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.

The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Political Line newsletter: Cow Economy, and Diplomacy
Culture influences market and diplomacy. But how much is too much on this count? A slice of the stalemate in trade talks between India and the U.S. is related to the U.S. demand for opening up India's farm sector. The U.S. wants to export more of its dairy and poultry products to India. India resists this demand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he would make personal sacrifices, if required, to ensure that farmers are protected. The proportion of population dependent on agriculture reveals one of the most striking differences between India and the United States, highlighting their vastly different economic structures and development stages. India has nearly half of its workforce engaged in agriculture, while the United States has only less than two percent directly employed in farming — representing a 32-fold difference in agricultural employment dependency. In India's case, agriculture contributes roughly 18 percent of GDP but nearly half of the population is dependent on it. Farmers are a powerful political constituency in both India and the United States. Food is also a question of national security. Post-Covid fears related to self-sufficiency in critical areas have further strengthened the case for national food markets insulated from global disruptions. India's resistance to allowing American farm produce in its market rests on three reasons. The first, as mentioned above, is that too many people are dependent on agriculture, and opening up the sector to American products could render them vulnerable. The second is national security. The third concerns apparently cultural reasons — American cows may be fed meat products such as chicken waste, and this is unacceptable to India. Milk and other products from a cow whose food chain is not clearly plant-based do not meet Indian standards. Whether such determination is consistently applied across all milk produced within India is beside the point. Cultural reasons are relevant to market decisions in all societies. For instance, some Muslim countries or shops may not sell pork; among the GCC countries, pork is available in the UAE and Bahrain, while in others it is not. In large parts of India now, beef is legally banned; in many parts, such as southern India, West Bengal, and the northeastern states, it is widely consumed by all social groups including Hindus. Cultural barriers to global trade are not new in India. Crossing the seas was once taboo — Gandhi had to do penance to be readmitted to his Modh Vaniya caste, which had ostracised him for doing so. Of the three issues at play in trade in agriculture, perhaps the easiest to change is the competency of the sector. But the cultural politics around the cow and the requirements of the agriculture sector often come into conflict. At least 20 out of 28 states have some form of laws to protect cows, which effectively translates into restrictions on the trade and transportation of cattle, including buffaloes. In the last decade or so, many states have enforced these laws aggressively, and vigilantes targeting even legal cattle trade often go scot-free. Simultaneously, a whole network of rent-seeking has emerged in the guise of cow protection, as the state spends massive amounts to shelter unproductive cows that farmers do not want to keep. It is not the case that meat production has ended; India's export of buffalo meat has been growing in the last three years at around four percent annually. What has happened is that cattle and leather trade have been pushed into a grey zone of legality, inflicting costs and losses for all involved and creating new rent-seeking opportunities. You can read about a sample of such restrictions here. Farmers are paying a huge price for this — on the one hand, the difficulty in disposing unproductive cattle, and on the other, the problem of free-roaming cattle destroying their crops. Cow protection in India was linked historically to farming practices of an earlier era. Those factors have changed due to technology and other developments. Yet, productivity in India's agriculture sector remains entangled in the religious association many people have with cows. The cow has long functioned as a symbol in Hindu-Muslim rivalry in the subcontinent. Hindu leaders such as Dayananda Saraswati made cow protection a tool for popular consolidation antagonistic to Muslims in the 19th century. Some Muslim leaders, such as Pir Abu Bakr in Bengal in the early 20th century, argued that cow sacrifice was an essential practice of Islam. Whether cow sacrifice is indeed an essential practice of Islam has been the subject of several litigations in independent India as well. While India grapples with global uncertainties created by political and technological upheavals, it might also make sense to review its priorities at home. The Fear of the Future People Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now raised the spectre of a demographic threat to India in his Independence Day speech. He said there was a conspiracy to change the demographic profile of India. You can read The Hindu editorial on this speech here. Does demographic composition determine the character of a nation? Leaving that question for a future discussion, here are some quick adjacent thoughts. Variations in population growth across communities and geographies pose challenges for governance and national identity. It is one thing to say that everyone is an individual citizen regardless of social location, faith, or ethnicity. But India's governance structure acknowledges the principle of group identities while providing special protections for religious and linguistic minorities, Dalits, backward classes, tribes, etc. Collective identities are not anathema to India's constitutional scheme; in fact, they are central to it. Political contestations have historically been framed in India around the numerical strength of communities. That history warrants discussion separately, but to cite a well known example, the 15% and 7.5% reservations for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities, respectively, were based on their proportion in the population. As the proportion of their population changes, so will their representation. This will be among the issues in the next delimitation of parliamentary constituencies in India. Currently, there are two distinct divergences in population growth in India. First, the north-central regions have higher birth rates than peninsular and western India. Second, Muslims have a higher birth rate than Hindus. Among Hindus, upper castes have lower birth rates compared to other groups. While the BJP and its supporters try to highlight the Hindu-Muslim divergence in population growth, many others, particularly parties in the South, are more worried about the regional divergence in population growth. It is this regional divergence that makes the next delimitation an unsettling prospect for many regions. Population management has to be a secular task, and all communities should participate in it. While the BJP constantly talks up an Islamic demographic threat, there are Muslim actors who acknowledge and even amplify it. Last year, a Muslim Minister in West Bengal said Muslim population was growing fast and would soon become a majority. The ruling Trinamool Congress distanced itself from the statement. Federalism Tract: Notes on Diversity This article by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin discusses how India is home to many nationalities and emphasizes the importance of linguistic diversity as a defining feature of India. It argues that in a true federal system, states should not have to protest, litigate, or plead for their rightful share of revenues. Governors are taking their role as chancellors of State universities too seriously, which is roiling the higher education sector. Read our editorial on the ongoing conflicts between Governors and State governments over university governance here. The drive against unauthorised immigrants from Bangladesh is creating rifts within India, as any Bengali-speaking individual can end up as a target of police action.