 For the first time in India, more than 10 lakh entrepreneurs of micro, medium and small enterprises went on a one-day strike across the country on 20th December 2021 against the steep increase in the prices of raw materials. After facing severe setbacks due to demonetization, ST implementation of GST and the ill-conceived COVID-19 lockdown, the MSMEs are gasping due to an increased production cost. Various organizations in the MSME sector have been seeking the attention of the union government to find solutions for the pressing issues of increased input cost and seeking financial aid for several months. It is a very sad day to witness the MSME entrepreneurs have to resort to closing their factory for a day to wake up the union government to listen to their problems. It has never been heard of in the past. Employees have gone on strike, but this is the first time employers have shut their factories down to convey their displeasure, agony, pain and the problems. If the government does not save them now, we can never see them again. It is not about the problem alone. It is about listening to the problems, listening to their views, listening to their issues. That is more important today, what is required. Affected severely by the policies of the union government and the ill-planned lockdown in March 2020 and now by the steep increase in raw material costs, the All India Council of the Association of MSMEs with around 170 organisations in the MSME sector have participated in the protest. I am Ramamurthy, spokesperson of the All India Council of Associations. Actually, this is just a moment and we have connected a pan-India, more than one-seventh associations are there. The reason why we all made a peaceful demonstration is to draw the attention of the government just for the first priority is raw material, which is very important for us, for any small-scale industry, without raw material we cannot survive and usually raw material costs will vary from our product cost from 60% to 70% maximum and sometimes 50% also. Now, in the present stages, it is causing 80% and the entire value addition we are not able to absorb in the market and all MSMEs are suffering like anything and our working capital is also eroded and after pandemic COVID also, we all survived through emergency create lending only and in this moment also, I want to thank the Honourable Finance Minister for granting us that loan, which made a small start for every small-scale industry after pandemic. Now, due to this raw material prices, because the whole lot is now vanished, all the working capital what we were having due to raw material prices has been absorbed and I will tell you two things is happening now. Due to this high cost of raw material, there is a slowdown in the economy also in November, December, we are not getting the required orders and we don't have the required working capital to operate. Before what we were operating, now only 50% we are all able to operate and the bankers also saying as your working capital is last year turnover is less due to COVID, they are not ready to lend us more also due to this raw material prices. So both sides cascading effort is very severe and our first objective is to bring back the raw material prices to April 2020 level. This is what we have requested the Honourable Prime Minister to intervene and as all the raw material suppliers are very big players in the field and we are all very small and we have got so much affected and we depend on our survival, it's very difficult now. Our request is please kindly intervene and have a talk with them, call us for our discussion and have some mutual concern and see to that the raw material prices reaches the pre-COVID level so that the inflation also will be controlled and the demand will also increase. This is one point. The second point is please allow import of all type of raw material, remove the whole anti-tapping duty so that the production what the government has given to raw material that can be eliminated so that a level playing field at least will be there and when the demand supply is there then at least the undue increase of raw material will be controlled from the factory side in the supply chain it moves from the factory side then to the next level, next level and before it reaches the small scale industry again there is a huge rise in the raw material prices so this is not actually been observed in the market and we are finding it very difficult to sell our own product then if in the supply chain in many sides also there is a problem and those are supplying to all the public sector companies, government orders, there is no absolutely price escalation classes. So then what can we do? Everywhere we are being hit, one side after pandemic just we are able to survive and now due to this we have got affected and hope so we are expecting a very quick solution that is the reason we all closed down for one day across India and in a very peaceful manner and showed our solidarity that we are and all of the raw materials are being bought by the MSMEs now we can even make a survey, all large scale companies doesn't buy no raw materials, we buy raw materials and we evaluate it and separate it with them even to the government companies or the PECs also and the product doing also the same thing is happening now so total vicious circle is in MSME staging a different environment now so this cost cannot be observed by us and we are not able to sustain that is why we are asking and fix an MRP for this at least in once in the three months they should not change the prices every day they are changing as gold prices and every day we cannot give quotation and change our prices and we all operate at the present stage and you just verify with any MSME units we are operating below 5% of margin only this is our state now all due to this high cost of import, labor everything is there and this leads to unemployment also in the future definitely now itself we are slowly reducing our manpower and this will lead to that also so this is our humble request to the government the respective ministries also and to the Honourable Prime Minister to kindly intervene and solve our problem and call us for a discussion so that we can tell our clients to them and we can even we are represented in our memorandum like agencies like NSAC or any government agencies can buy materials in bulk and distribute to us so that the cost advantages will come directly to us MSME entrepreneurs from more than 10 states participated in the demonstration Tamil Nadu and Karnataka saw massive participation in the protest and the strike the MSME units in the two important hubs Chennai and Coimbatore came to a standstill on the protest day across India pan India we estimate more than 10 lakh industries have participated in this and all the major associations across India across in Tamil Nadu entire Tamil Nadu in Karnataka entire Karnataka like Belgium Peña even Peña in the states Mysore and they have all all the industrial parts in Madhya Pradesh Madrasahapuna Gujarat where all the industries are concentrated fully almost 7 to 10 states has been covered the livelihood of the huge workforce directly and indirectly employed in the sector is also in trouble because of the crisis MSMEs employ roughly around approximately 12 crore people across India and we are all interdependent on one among us and it will be more than 40 crore people one third of population this is what we say from MSME we hope the concerned ministries will call the respective raw material buyers and have a dialogue with them and give us a possible solution.