India: Small spinners take on SIMA over subsidies.

COIMBATORE, Feb. 2. THE South India Small Spinners Association (Sisspa), representing small-scale spinning units, has charged that despite availing massive subsidies from the Government, many large/medium textile mills affiliated to the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) were turning sick.

Further sharpening its stand-off against SIMA on the Central excise waiver issue, Sisspa also accused SIMA member-mills of avoiding payment of provident fund of their employees with the intention of "presenting their case at a later date" to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) as sick companies.

In a hard-hitting rejoinder to SIMA's demand last …