Himachal minister refutes charges of flight of industries

There is no flight of industry from Himachal Pradesh and the charges of the opposition in this regard are politically motivated, state Industries Minister Mukesh Agnihotri said today.
"There is no flight of industry and no industrial unit has been closed or shifted from the state and the allegations of the opposition regarding closing or shifting of units was a part of political agenda of the opposition and contrary to facts," he told the media persons here.
Agnihotri said even after withdrawal of Special Industrial package, the investors attracted to set up units in Himachal due to congenial investment environment, responsive government and incentives offered by the state government at its own level.

Investment proposals worth Rs 12,571 crore are pending clearance with state level single window clearance and monitoring committee, which was happy augury as compared to tenure of special industrial package when proposals worth Rs 45,000 were received but only the proposals with investment of Rs 11,000 crore materialised.
Investors meet organised by the government had yielded good results and response of investors was encouraging, he said, adding that an investors meet would be organised at Baddi in Solan district to showcase the potential, infrastructure and other positive factors for investing in the state.
Baddi has emerged a Pharma Hub of the country and 35 per cent of the total drugs manufactured in Asia are produced in Baddi. A bulk drug park is in the pipeline which would give further boost to Pharma Industry, he said.

Agnihotri suspected some 'design and conspiracy' against the drug industry in the state and said that it was intriguing that out of 28,000 drug samples drawn by drug authorities, 23,000 were drawn from drug units in Himachal.

In the present scenario of recession, the government has adopted the policy of 'industry by invitation' to woo the investors and the incentives given by the state government at its own level have helped in attracting new investors, he said, adding that "Our primary focus is on improving and strengthening the basic infrastructure".
An allocation of Rs 100 crore had been made only for Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt for providing facilities like modern rain shelters, toilets, metalling the roads, labour hostels and other facilities, he said.

Efforts are being made to provide clearances online on a single application, he added.
Besides one State-of-the-Art Industrial complex at Dabota in Nalagarh, two more such complexes with an investment of Rs 262 crore were coming at Kandrori in Kangra and Pandoga in Una, he said.
A land bank has been set up, a technology centre was coming up in BBN area, several incentives like freezing the power tariff for five years for industry, 50 per cent concession was being given to industry on stamp duty.
Referring to housing problems faced by the labourers in industrial areas, Agnihotri said that the government was constructing labour hostels on large scale and persuading the industrial units to purchase the hostels at highly subsidised rates.