Amid shortage of land, Dewas industry has no room to expand

Industry in Dewas, one of the leading exporting towns of Madhya Pradesh, is being squeezed by a shortage of land.

The town, which houses units of Ranbaxy, Tata Leather, Kirloskar, S Kumar’s, Eicher and a currency note printing press, has as many as 260 SMEs which feed these mega industries. The shortage of land has choked further investment in the area.

“Industrialists have put fresh investments on hold, as the industrial area has no additional land for new units,” said Ashok Khandelia, senior vice-president of Association of Industries Dewas.

“The SMEs have no room to meet orders placed by their bigger cousins, while the big companies have no space to expand.”

Speaking to Business Standard, the principal secretary in the state’s Department of Industries, Satya Prakash, admitted, “I have been told in a recent meeting with Dewas industrialists that the area has no surplus land for local units to expand.”

When asked if the government is going to provide land to local units, he said, “the department deals only in policy matters, land is taken care of by the state industrial development corporation and its subsidiaries.”

The annual turnover of industry in Dewas is Rs 3,000 crore each year, with Tata Leathers and Ranbaxy contributing the highest.

Dewas town had been recently awarded the title of city of excellence by the Central government, for excelling in exports. The SMEs are choking, despite the fact that the town is in the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). However, for Dewas it will take five years more for the project to come out of the drawing board.

Kirloskar Brothers had recently transferred a 46-acre plot of land to the Department of Industries, but the Town and Country Planning Department of the state apportioned it and one chunk has been surrendered to the government for housing activities by the department.

With handsome orders in hand, the SME units, which employ as many as 25,000 people, have no option but to expand, install new machinery or take on job work.

“I am ready to pay as high as Rs 32 per sq ft in Dewas for industrial area where I bought land at Rs 0.30 per sq ft years ago, but no one listens. They (government officials) say there is no land,” an SME owner, who does not wish to be identified, told Business Standard on the telephone from Dewas. Dewas is also the first Indian town to have a BOT (build own and transfer)-based private water supply system.

Until last year the town was parched and arid. Initiated by a local industrialist, the project came up last year and is now supplying water to the industry at Rs 26 per kilo liter.

Dewas produces medicines, textiles, engineering goods, de-oiled soya cakes and leather items. Besides other products, the Dewas SMEs also produce high quality dollar gram (kabuli chana) and high-protein sharbati variety of wheat.