“Such reform measures would go a long way to help trade and industry to operate in this extremely difficult time.” In its short-term suggestions, PHD Chamber has suggested an immediate reduction in the lending rate by all the banks to percolate the full effect of recent 75 basis points cut in repo rate by the RBI.

“Also, we suggest to defer the EMIs of the term-loans for 6 months, special interest subvention @ 3 per cent p.a. in loans to MSMEs and other badly affected industries, abolish all fixed charges of all the utilities and defer utilities bills by 3 months,” he said.

In the long-term suggestions, the industry body requested for a reduction of income tax of the proprietorship and LLPs firms to the level of 25 per cent for old and 15 per cent for new companies; reducing the customs duties on basic raw material by at least 5 percentage points; and reducing the cost of capital with a further reduction of 100 basis points cut in the repo rate.

“We suggest rationalisation of GST rate structure by merging the 18 per cent tax slab with 12 per cent tax slab, and further recapitalization of the Public Sector Banks,” said Aggarwal.

“Increase in government consumption expenditure and capacity building by the business firms would be crucial at this juncture to rejuvenate the economy to its potential growth trajectory of 7-8 per cent in the next few years.”