*Existing industrial estates to be transferred to SICOP, SIDCO
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 16: The much-needed new State Industrial Policy will attract investment of Rs 20,000 crore in the industrial sector over a period of 10 years-Rs 2000 crore per annum and create over 15,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities annually for the unemployed/educated youth. Moreover, all the existing industrial estates will be transferred to the SICOP and SIDCO so as to ensure that District Industries Centers (DICs) lay exclusive focus on hand-holding the new entrepreneurs.
In the policy, thrust has also been laid on creation of land bank of 20,000 kanals across Jammu and Kashmir, retrieval of unutilized land in the existing industrial estates, creation of Rs 15 crore Corpus Fund for the sick industrial units besides creation of industrial parks to achieve sustainable, equitable, environment friendly and balance industrial growth.
According to the policy, which was recently approved by the State Administrative Council headed by Governor N N Vohra and the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR, the major thrust has been laid on attracting investment of Rs 20,000 in the industrial sector over a period of 10 years up to 2026 by focusing on all the three regions of the State, encouraging utilization of locally available raw materials and mineral resources, promoting growth of thrust industries and encouraging hi-tech and knowledge based industries including Electronics and Information Technology etc.
With this, 15,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities will get generated annually for the unemployed/educated youth, which means by 2026, a total of 1.5 lakh employment opportunities would be made available to the J&K youth and would go a long way in addressing the problem of unemployment.
Since availability of adequate land is a pre-requisite for setting up of industry, the policy envisages creating land bank of about 20,000 kanals across the State with emphasis on locations outside the urban areas. For this purpose, available State land suitable for industry will be transferred to the Industries and Commerce Department, which will draw up an action plan for creation of the land bank of 20,000 kanals including State land over the first five years of the Industrial Policy and approve annual targets keeping in view the availability and expected allocation of funds.
In order to ensure faster development of new industrial estates and more efficient maintenance and management of the existing estates, the new policy envisages transferring all the existing industrial estates with the DICs to J&K SICOP and SIDCO. “This measure is expected to give a boost to the development of Micro and Small Scale Industry while simultaneously leaving the DICs free to focus and concentrate on hand holding the new entrepreneurs from conception of the project to the registration and subsequently to operation and continuous production while clearing incentives under the State and Central Packages”, a senior officer of the Industries and Commerce Department said.
It is pertinent to mention here that at present there are 52 industrial estates in the State spread over an area of 31,335 kanals and 29 new industrial estates are at different stages of development. Till date, 29,449 Small Scale Units are registered in the State with a total investment of Rs 3,609.82 crore providing direct employment to 1,35,892 persons. In addition, 83 Large and Medium Enterprises with an investment of Rs 4,083.52 crore also stood established in the State providing direct employment to 18,923 persons.
Besides looking after the existing industrial estates after being transferred from the DICs, the SIDCO would initiate action to develop industrial parks over about 5000 kanals on the ready to occupy model to attract investments in large/medium industry by August 2017. Moreover, the SIDCO and SICOP with the approval of respective Board of Directors will develop fully owned industrial estates/parks. The State Government will even permit SIDCO and SICOP to develop industrial parks through their own resources on commercial lines.
As per the policy, the earlier allotted land still remaining unutilized/vacant or have got extra land than required, will be retrieved or in case of unit being sick, the land will be put to open auction and the highest bidder will become eligible for transfer of that land for industrial establishment. Moreover, under the new policy, SIDCO and SICOP will ensure optimum utilization of land including through flatted structures and vertical expansion wherever feasible.
About the revival of sick units, the policy states that this would be done strictly as per the framework for revival and rehabilitation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in distress notified by the Union Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. “This notification addresses the problem of early detection of distress and rehabilitation/exit of MSMEs in a more structured and transparent manner”, a senior officer of the Industries and Commerce department said.
An Asset Reconstruction Company in partnership with J&K Bank will be set up to do asset stripping where ever needed and formulate a revival package. Till an Asset Reconstruction Company is set up, the State Government will provide a Corpus Fund with an initial contribution of Rs 15 crore to Industries and Commerce Department to help the revival of sick industries. The Corpus would be used to disburse recoverable soft loan as per State Level Revival Committee recommendation to the concerned unit holder for revival of sick unit.
Since power supply is the main issue confronting the industries, the policy has recommended that Power Development Department would initiate steps to provide additional 150 MW power to the industrial area every year and the Industries and Commerce Department would assist the Power Development Department in taking reform measures in the industrial estates and mobilizing resources for developing required infrastructure.
Environment protection has also been dealt in the policy and in order to ensure protection of ecology and environment, thrust has been laid on setting up of green industries and adoption of green technologies. Only such projects would be eligible for incentives which undertake to install online pollution control devises. There would be a special incentive for online pollution control devises to be approved and monitored by the Pollution Control Board.
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