Agra pollution norms deter new entrepreneurs

The industrial sector in Agra, which earns more than Rs 2,200 crore from handicrafts and footwear exports alone, is failing to attract fresh entrepreneurs.

Ever since pollution norms were made effective in the past decade, local industrial growth dropped, with industrialists either avoiding Agra or diversifying into newer avenues of business guided by the industrial bodies.

"This lack of initiative in Agra has stymied the industrial growth of this town. People are not willing to take risks and are moving out of the older industries in Agra like foundry, footwear and tourism,”said Rajiv Gupta, former president, National Chamber of Industries & Commerce, UP.

 

According to Gupta, proposals from bodies like the NCIC in the past few years, included setting up units manufacturing eco-friendly energy generation equipments like solar photovoltaic cells, wind turbines etc, which could have earned Agra the distinct status of an environmental SEZ.

Few entrepreneurs showed any interest in these projects.

He claimed the lack of growth prospects in Agra led to migration of the youth to Delhi and NCR.

Larger industries were not diversifying their business as they did not get government support.

Only plastic packaging units were coming up in Agra in the small-scale and cottage sector, operating without government aid.

Parvez Khan, partner in one such unit manufacturing plastic packaging, tubes and moulded sheets out of a rented shed in the Sikandra industrial area, claimed that there were at least 20-25 such small-scale units functioning in Agra with a couple of injection moulding machine each, manufacturing plastic, thermocol, PE bubble packs and PP film packaging material for the local market, as well as other neighbouring towns.

Parvez claimed that though there were 2-3 large scale packaging units already functioning in Agra, they mostly catered to large domestic clients and exports, while the cottage units being set up in the town were catering to the local demand with profits in the region of Rs 1-2 lakh a month.

Parvez also said that starting a PE or PP film packaging unit with second-hand machinery was cheaper compared to purchasing new machinery and a lot of the cottage units functioning in Agra were utilizing used machinery, which cost as little as Rs 5 lakh to set up units without government aid.

In fact, he said, the only government aid required was in the form of allocation of plots in the industrial zones.

Establishing an injection moulding unit however was a costly affair and hence, there were not many such units operating in Agra now

Citing the problems faced by start-up units, he said that most of the cottage units were unregistered and hence, faced difficulties in procuring raw material from Delhi.

This problem was solved by tying up with local suppliers for resale of “finished” products, which freed them from the botherations of VAT registration, although it meant a significant drop in margins.

Another major problem was difficulty in obtaining the annual pollution control certification, mandatory for any industrial unit to function in the town.

He said that if the timeframe for certificate renewal was made at least two years if not five years, it would help the SMEs.