200 bigha acquired for rubber industry park

A specialised rubber park is being set up in West Bengal and should be commissioned within a couple of years, Swapan Kumar Dey, chairman of the All India Rubber Industries Association(AIRIA), eastern region, said here.

AIRIA has taken the initiative to set up the park to improve the quality and environmental compliance of rubber industries in the eastern region.

The park is to come up at Domjur in Howrah district.

It will cover 500 bigha, of which around 200 bigha has been acquired already.

"Around 250 rubber manufacturing units are expected to be set up and the park will have hi-tech testing centre, common warehouse facility, research and development centre, training centre and upgraded infrastructure," said Dey.

The expected investment in the park infrastructure would be around Rs 30 crore, with Rs 22 crore to come from the Union ministry of commerce and industries under the Industrial Infrastructure Upgradation Scheme (IIUS), Rs 3 crore from West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and the rest from the industry, Dey said.

The state government has reduced stamp duty by 50 per cent to support the park, Dey pointed out.

More than 250 companies have filed applications for and many of the units were not from West Bengal.

The park is expected to generate employment for more than 10,000 workers, Dey claimed.

The park will provide the small and medium enterprises in rubber manufacturing industry access to quality infrastructure and best practices, Dey said.

There has been a decline in the size of the rubber sector in eastern India with tyre majors like Dunlop ceasing operations and footwear manufacturers like Bata limiting in-house production, Dey said.

"There is a huge potential in markets like Asean and south Asian countries," said Dey.

The rubber consumption in the state has significantly declined in the last few years, he added.

Some the production activity has shifted to the southern states owing to the local availability of raw rubber while some leading producers have moved to the northern states to supply tyres to automobile companies there.

Kolkata port is a major entry port for raw rubber but few users have set up factories in the eastern region.