Eisai Pharmatechnology and Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd’s president and managing director Sanjit Singh Lamba has sought tax holiday for 10 years and other incentives for existing units in pharma sector.
The package promised to the industries in North Andhra after bifurcation should be extended to existing units. It should ensure uninterrupted power supply, removal of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT), and AC air cargo terminal with refrigeration for life-saving and other drugs manufactured from Vizag cluster.
In an appeal to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, he said they were looking at his initiative to transform Vizag into one of the leading pharma hubs.
Mr. Lamba told The Hindu that MAT was the biggest dampening factor for the pharma firms along with unreliable power supply. Eisai, a Japanese multinational, had invested Rs.250 crore in its facility at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC) at Parawada near here. It had recently invested Rs.15 crore in R&D facility.
Stating that a conducive climate at JNPC and its neighbourhood to promote pharma sector could ensure four-fold increase in exports from the existing Rs.5,000 crore, he said Eisai itself might be forced to look at alternate destinations for its future investments in China if incentives were not provided to them. Eisai had plans to invest Rs.100 crore on expansion.
Mr. Lamba said JNPC, which was approved in 2005, should have achieved an export turnover of Rs.10,000 crore by 2012. “In non-SEZ area power has become a big issue as production on generators is not at all viable,” he said, adding that regular political interference for jobs and other issues had also sent a wrong signal to investors visiting JNPC.
IT and pharma were two big strengths for the country. “In pharma sector we have not achieved much despite huge potential for want of special incentives,” he said. This was one of the factors for not even achieving half of $25 billion export target set by the country for 2015.
