GST made things worse, says Shiv Sena

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Wednesday said that the truce between the Reserve Bank of India and Centre was like “today’s death being postponed till tomorro”.

The RBI board had held a marathon meeting on Monday over several issues, including how much capital the apex bank needs, lending norms for small and medium enterprises and rules for weak banks. Signalling a temporary truce, the RBI and the government had agreed to refer to an expert committee the contentious issue of appropriate size of reserves that the apex bank must hold, while restructuring of stress-ed loans of small businesses would be considered by the RBI.

“Fortunately, the government took a step back and the RBI also adopted a middle path. Therefore, a show down has been temporarily averted for now. Some feel, it is like today’s death postponed until tomorrow,” an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana said.

It also said that the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector was under stress due to demonetisation, and that it also had a cascading effect on sectors like services and production.

“The GST only increased problems for these sectors. The MSME sector has come under stress today only due to the policies of this government. Though the UPA government was responsible for Rs 10 lakh crore worth debts of large companies, how can the previous government be held responsible for the stress in the MSME sector today?” the editorial asked. The government has probably understood that it was its own doing which caused ruining of the MSME sector and therefore, made the policy to ease lending norms.