Government panel to study Vidarbha industries sector and districtwise

Nagpur: The state government committee under Nagpur divisional commissioner Anup Kumar has decided to conduct a sector and districtwise study of industries in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The committee was formed by the government to recommend sops to attract industries to the two backward regions. The first meeting of the panel was held on Friday in Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA). This is the first time industrialists themselves are conducting a study of industrial scenario in the two regions.
Anup Kumar has set a target of submitting the report to the government by December end. Two more meetings will be held in Aurangabad and Amravati. The districtwise study will be done by district collectors and general managers of district industries centres (DICs). They will be done under supervision of divisional commissioners of Nagpur, Amravati and Aurangabad. The committee will prepare a detailed questionnaire within a week and provide it to the collectors. They will contain questions like the number of industries closed down, number of cases where land was refused to industries, persons registered at employment exchange, etc. This information will have to be collected and compiled by September 20.
Sixteen groups consisting largely of industrialists have been formed for doing sectorwise study. Each group will have five members representing all the three revenue divisions. They will also have representatives of the concerned sectors. The group chairman can seek help of consultants too.
The next meeting of the committee will be held in Aurangabad between September 25 and 30. All district and sectorwise reports will be presented to the committee, which will then prepare a plan of action. The final meeting will be held in Amravati in November, in which the recommendations will be finalized.
Earlier, VIA president Atul Pande gave a presentation before the committee. VIA requested the chairman on (1) quality and cost of energy, (2) exports promotion, (3) authority and powers at divisional headquarters, (4) more reforms for increasing ease of doing business (5) skilled manpower at all levels (6) labour reforms ensuring productivity (7) accessibility to technologies and innovations (8) revival of non-performing assets of stressed units (9) exploitation opportunities as logistics hub (10) special incentives for the backward regions including marketing of industrial parks (11) nurturing natural clusters of the region.
VIA member Pravin Tapadia said Vidarbha’s industrialists were reluctant to take risks and go for big investment. Most industries did not do value addition and hence their profits were meagre. He suggested incentives should be given for value addition, which would encourage industrialists to go for it.