Telangana’s Industry and Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao has urged Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to support the MSME sector in the state, reeling under the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

“While the incidence of Covid is declining sharply in the country and the chances of a modest economic recovery may be possible towards Q4 of the year, the MSME sector still requires support.

“Looking at the seriousness of loss of business and declining revenues of the MSMEs, it will be justified if the loans availed by the MSMEs are given a moratorium till March 31st, 2022 without any accrual of interest during the moratorium period,” wrote KTR, as the minister is popularly known, in a letter to Sitharaman.

He stated that this support will provide a big relief to the MSMEs and can help them get back to normalcy.

KTR highlighted that Hyderabad and surrounding districts are major hubs for manufacturing for the past five decades with a predominance of MSME industries. But due to pandemic-induced restrictions and disruptions since last year, the MSMEs have been badly affected, he said.

“Though the Government of Telangana did not put any restrictions on industrial activities during the recent second wave of the pandemic, the restrictions in surrounding states had a major impact on the functioning of the industries in Telangana,” he said.

He pointed out that many of them faced challenges in procurement of raw materials and sending out finished products to their customers.

He said another reason for the slowdown of industrial activities was the shortage of labour that typically comes to Telangana from other states.