PANJIM: In a bid to revive and rehabilitate sick industrial units by granting them fiscal space, the State Government has introduced a ‘financial relief scheme’ for such units. As an immediate relief, the scheme proposes to freeze the existing liabilities of these units.
In his 2015-16 Budget, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parseker had proposed to freeze the existing liabilities of the sick units and grant them certain concessions and incentives to give them fiscal space to restart.
Directorate of Industries has now notified the scheme ‘The Goa State Financial Relief Scheme for Sick Industrial Units, 2016’, to provide relief and subsidies to industrial units covered under the award or scheme approved by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) constituted under the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act, 1985 (Central Act 1 of 1986).
“Certain large scale industrial units in the State of Goa are facing the effects of a recessionary trend which has set in and this has impacted their performance, leading many to approach the BIFR for restructuring of their financial positions so as to provide for stability of fiscal health and continue operations,” Under Secretary (Industries) Georgina Saldanha said.
Saldanha added that such units have caused large scale unemployment and many outsourced activities and peripheral economy generated out of such activity have been hampered. “The scheme objective is to provide financial support to the existing sick industrial units to continue operations, so as to help them come out of their sickness and help retain the employment and peripheral economic activity associated with the unit,” she stated.
As an immediate relief, the old pending dues towards Value Added Tax (VAT), tax on entry of goods, sales taxes, central sales tax, electricity charges, water charges and the penalty charged on, of the sick units will stand frozen. Once the unit picks up, it will have to clear the frozen dues in quarterly instalments. “All other dues arising out of interest, penalties, fines, etc due to non-payment of the relevant dues shall be waived and written off,” Saldanha said.
Industrial units in operation for the last 10 years, declared sick and covered under the scheme/award of BIFR are eligible for the benefit.
Any other industrial unit facing acute financial problems on lines of a sick industrial unit, and declared to be eligible by the Goa Investment Promotion Board will also be covered under the scheme with prior approval of the Finance Department.
