Darda urges to develop Nagpur as auto hub

Rajya Sabha member Vijay Darda has made a strong plea to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and Union Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel to initiate steps to develop Nagpur and its adjoining industrial areas as an automobile manufacturing hub.

In a letter to Chavan last week, Darda said that Nagpur, with its un-utilised industrial infrastructure at Burtibori and Mihan-SEZ could be transformed into an automobile manufacturing hub, if the government extended tax and other incentives.

While acknowledging that Chavan had taken proactive steps in promoting Mihan-SEZ and was instrumental in bringing IT giant Infosys here, the letter said the Chief Minister should take a lead in developing the auto hub.

 

One 'mother unit' in auto sector could give rise to 300 ancillary units providing thousands of jobs, he said.

"Vidarbha has remained backward because of government's apathy in promoting industrialisation by offering special incentive packages. On the other hand, overemphasis on Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nasik belts has resulted in overcrowding there....Investors wanting to come to Maharashtra can not be accommodated in Mumbai-Pune region. The only solution is to offer concessions in backward region of Vidarbha, unmatched by other states like Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu." Darda said that Mahindra and Mahindra was looking for a location outside the state to invest around Rs 3,000 crore after its proposal of setting up plant at Chakan near Pune was dropped because of tax issues. Indo Rama Synthetics was also planning to shift to Tamil Nadu as Maharashtra did not have proper port facilities, Darda said.