Industrial Advisory Committee fails to meet during past 10 months
Decisions taken in previous meeting remain unimplemented
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 8: Though industrialists across the State are facing plethora of problems and adopting different means after regular intervals to attract the attention of the concerned authorities yet the Government has remained unmoved thereby sending a message loud and clear that industrial development is not on its priority list.
This can be gauged from the fate of Industrial Advisory Committee, which despite being an important platform to promptly resolve the issues being faced by the industrialists and implement State Industrial Policy, has not met during the past nearly 10 months despite repeated representations from different bodies of industrialists, which are member of the committee.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the last meeting of the Industrial Advisory Committee was convened in the month of February this year under the chairpersonship of the then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and several issues being faced by the industrialists were deliberated upon.
During the meeting, several directions were issued to the Industries and Commerce Department for mitigating the sufferings of the industrialists on war footing basis. The most important direction was pertaining to providing round the clock power supply to the Industrial Estates by upgrading the infrastructure and grant of incentives.
The Industrial Advisory Committee was then supposed to meet after three months—in May to ascertain the progress made on the decisions taken in February meeting and take up new issues of the industrialists for resolution.
However, the schedule of the meeting was not adhered to as a result of which cognizance of the remaining issues of the industrialists could not be taken. “Even the decisions taken in February meeting have not been translated into reality by the Industries and Commerce Department as a result of which there is resentment among the industrialists”, sources informed.
As composition of Industrial Advisory Committee was required to be changed following imposition of Governor’s rule, the General Administration Department vide Government Order No.1225 dated August 3, 2018 re-constituted the committee in supersession of Government Order No.1003-GAD of 2015 dated July 24, 2015 for effective implementation of State Industrial Policy.
Vide August 3, 2018 order, Governor was made Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Committee and Advisory (V) Incharge Industries and Commerce Department was made Member of the Committee.
It was specifically mentioned in the order that the reconstituted Industrial Advisory Committee will have the mandate to suggest measures for ease of doing business, create an enabling environment for the development of industry in the State and discuss various demands raised by the Industrial Associations from time to time.
However, the Industries and Commerce Department has failed to initiate steps for convening meeting of the reconstituted Industrial Advisory Committee till date although its meeting was required to be convened by or before November 3, 2018. Due to this the industrialists have started nursing an impression that industrial development is not on the priority list of the Governor’s Administration.
The non-seriousness on the part of Industries and Commerce Department is notwithstanding the fact that Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu, Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kashmir, Federation of Industries Jammu and representatives of Confederation of Indian Industries have been regularly coming up with the statements highlighting the issues being faced by them.
“The industrialists are mainly expressing anguish over non-availability of Central and State Government’s fiscal incentives due to which very negligible new units have been registered with the Industries Department”, sources said.
They further said, “the position is more serious as many newly opened units are in the process of surrendering the land allotted to them due to non availability of State/Central fiscal incentives. Moreover, MSME/large scale units are suffering very badly due to delay in the grant of fiscal incentives as approved in the State Budget 2018-19”.
“The industrialists are being compelled to pay additional freight on the import of raw materials and finished goods due to delay in implementation of Central Government Transport Department Notification dated 16-07-2018 in respect of enhancement in the safe axel load for commercial vehicles”, sources said.
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