Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 19: Federation of Industries Jammu (FOIJ) has alleged that new Industrial Policy of the Government is virtually death warrant for the growth of Industrial sector in the Jammu and Kashmir State.
A meeting of Federation of Industries was held today under the chairmanship of Rajesh Jain, chairman FOIJ, which was also attended by all the Industrial Associations’ office bearers of Jammu region to discuss the Industrial Policy 2016 announced by Industries & Commerce Department. The members present in the meeting raised serious concern in respect of policy guidelines and other related issues for the allotment/ transfer of land and other issues. They termed the new policy as `death warrant’ and said that it is big hurdle in the growth of industrial sector in the State.
The members unanimously agreed that the said Industrial Policy framed at the behest of vested interests in the Government, is against the growth of the Industrial sector in our State. The policy is also against the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a ‘Make in India’ and ‘Start-Up India’ programmes to provide employment opportunities for the unemployed youth of our State and prospective investors from outside the State who will play a major role for the industrialization in J&K by setting up of Medium & Large Scale industrial units.
They pointed out that in many respects, the policy fails to create an encouraging environment towards rapid industrialization and will definitely not result in attracting local youth to seek self employment by setting up industrial units. The projection of Rs 20,000 Crore investment in next ten years may be a false statement and big joke to mislead the State / Govt of India and the general public at large, they added.
The members said that major negative thrust has been upon exorbitant pricing in the land rate with an increase of 100% to 150% over and above the current land premium rates. Further, a very little time is being given for the implementation of projects which may cause delay due to financial problems and other unavoidable circumstances, which we term as source of corruption and the industrial projects can be evicted by the Government mid way and forfeit the hard earn money of the Unit holders who borrowed from the Banks and Financial Institutes for the setting up of their units.
It seems that Govt is bent upon for the industrialization on gun point with an intention to forcefully take back the projects of the entrepreneurs under implementation if delayed to setup the units along with his own investment and money borrowed from the financial institutions. “Under the above conditions, we fear that the financial institutes may refuse the financial facilities to the aspiring entrepreneurs with these pre-unwanted conditions as per the new proposed industrial policy, ” they added.
Majority of the entrepreneurs felt that the major thrust is being accorded to cost of industrial land, transfer rates and unwarranted powers as envisaged in the policy. The policy can be termed as more of land policy by the landlords rather than an Industrial Policy by the Government. In respect of the revival of the sick units, Government plans to take the possession of the such units and auction them at throw out prices as per the policy.
The FOI requested the Governor to intervene in this serious matter and strongly rejected the `land policy’ under the name of Industrial Policy (2016-2026) which they termed as ‘Anti-industry’ as the draft documents of industrial policy treated as ‘Most Secret Document’ and not shown / shared with the stakeholders inspite of the repeated requests.
The meeting was also attended by Lalit Mahajan, Vijay Aggarwal, Romesh Badyal, Jatinder Aul (Co-Chairman, FOI); Bansi Lal Gupta, Ashok Jain, Sanjeev Vig , Rahul Bansal, Varun Singla, Ajay Langer, Viraaj Malhotra , Anil Modi, Parveen Jain, Gagan Jain, Sharad Malhotra Retash Mahajan, Rajinder Gupta and Parveen Gupta.
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