The online Finance Facilitation Centre (FFC) initiative of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was the topic of a seminar by the Eastern Region of the CII on Thursday here.
Speakers in the seminar, entitled ‘MSME Financing – Empowering SMEs through addressing their financing needs to generate awareness about the CII-FFC’, were of the opinion that the move is timely and will bring some relief to the worries of securing finance by the entrepreneurs of the State.
State MSME Department Secretary Panchanan Dash, who inaugurated the seminar, praised the CII initiative and said that globally prosperity has always been tagged to the degree of success of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ( MSME) in that area.
He listed out the steps taken recently by the State to catalyze the MSME growth which included persuasion with the banks that has resulted in 92 per cent growth in loan disbursement in the last fiscal to the sector, single window clearance and revamping the District Industrial Centres.
He stressed on better non fiscal input, including clearances as equally important as finance and advised the banks to help revive sick units which would lead to a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
Director, MSME Development Institute, Cuttack PK Gupta welcomed the CII-FFC initiative. He advised to broaden the concept of MSME to include service units along with the manufacturing units.
CII Eastern Region MSME Chairman SK Behera requested banks to relook into the rate of lending and suggested that the interest rates be pegged for the MSME sector at 2 to 3 per cent below that for large industries.
Deputy Director of CII Amit Kumar Tripathy explained the objectives of the FFC and explained how to use it. He said that use of the FFC would help the entrepreneur get his business proposal scrutinized by CII experts who will ensure that the applications will go to the heads of partner banks for approval.
He pointed out that it would bring the rejection level down and reduce delay for the entrepreneur. He said that over Rs 150 crore has been disbursed through the process though he admitted that very few of the proposals received in this way is from Odisha.
Former Chairman of CII Odisha State Council JB Pany welcomed everybody and said that the focus of CII is on creating and sustaining an environment conducive to the growth of industry in the region.
Convener of CII Odisha MSME State panel Niranjan Mohanty gave the vote of thanks in the inaugural session. Representatives of more than ten banks and financial institutions made presentations of their schemes to the gathering of the entrepreneurs.
The CII has launched an online SME Finance Facilitation Centre (CII-FFC) on June 16, 2014 in New Delhi. CII-FFC operates as a one-stop shop aggregating financing option for various financial institutions, provides advisory and credit facilitation support to MSMEs, sensitizes MSMEs on the alternative sources of financing such as Venture Capital, Angel Fund, Distress Fund and SME Exchange.
Other facilities include online training in finance management, information on MSME schemes launched by the Government and financial institutions and peer-to-peer networking. It was launched by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik during Enterprise Odisha 2014.