Chennai: Reacting to the Finance Ministry’s announcement on interest waiver on loans of up to Rs two crore under the RBI moratorium scheme in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, Consortium of Indian Associations (CIA) has said the proposed scheme “appears ambiguous and may not deliver the needs of a sufferer”.
In a statement, CIA convenor K E Raghunathan said, many bankers and NBFCs CIA has spoken to have expressed difficulty in understanding the direction.
“Many feel it could have been a simple and straight forward direction and easy to implement straight away without ambiguity. The terminology of “Simple interest Vs Compound interest’ can be the crux of the matter in understanding.”
He added: “It is suggested that the direction could have been made simple as for all loans less than Rs 2 crore that are outstanding as on 1 March 2020 , any interest charged during six months of moratorium period will be reimbursed by government”.
Raghunathan further said, “Everyone talks about economy returning back to pre-Covid days. The economy went down because of lockdown and that was because of Covid. Now lockdown is removed and so economy is returning back. But has Covid gone off? Even RBI Governor is not spared. Many States have increase in Covid affected persons. Already exporters are losing orders from select countries. How can we simply celebrate that economy is back to normal, even if it is? What way the income lost by industries for six months been compensated and when will they recover it back?”