West Bengal Industrial Reconstruction Department has decided to offer an amnesty scheme for 58 sick industrial units in the state that collectively owe aver 150 crore to the state government.
“There is no point to get into legal complications for the unrecovered money. Rather the government decided to offer this scheme which will help the government to recover some amount. We were working on the scheme for the last six months. The file will now be sent to chief minister for her approval,” a senior government official said.
According to government sources, since 1990 the state government has extended a loan of about 173 crore to about 58 industrial units at different point of time, of which about 23 crore is being recovered so far.
The industries, which were offered the loan by government, mostly include jute mills, textile units and engineering units.
The amnesty scheme is likely to waive interest upto 75 per cent in case to case basis. “In the pesent form of the scheme, for the industries which have already paid the principal, the interest waiver is about 75 per cent. In other cases the interest waiver varies from 35 to 65 per cent,” the official said.
The scheme could be availed by the industries for three months after announcement, although according to officials, there is provision for extension of the time period.