Madhya Pradesh Industries Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya assured industry representatives that the State Government will reconsider the decision of the Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board to apply surcharge of 2 per cent on turnover of companies using bio-resources.
A delegation of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) met the minister on Tuesday and expressed concerns that the move would adversely affect the competitiveness of industries in the state.
CII Western Region Chairman and Managing Director of Tata Chemicals R Mukundan said that the decision of State Biodiversity Board was taken without any prior consultation with the industry. He further said that the decision needs to be reconsidered because such a surcharge under Biodiversity Act has not been imposed in any other state of the country.
CII Regional Director Kaushalendra Sinha informed that the Industries Minister gave a patient hearing to CII’s views and assured that he will take up the matter in best interests of the industry.
The concerns about the Biodiversity surcharge were aired in an interaction with the media here on the occasion of unveiling the ‘Work Plan and Focus’ of the CII for year 2013-14 which is based on the theme ‘Resurgent Madhya Pradesh - Catalyzing Economic Growth’.
Informing about the work plan, state CII Chairman Ranjan Mimani told that the confederation will work on the focus areas to achieve tangible results.
The focus areas include opening of passport office at Indore, improving connectivity infrastructure in the state, issue of property tax and building permission in the industrial areas, streamlining of the procedure of VAT subsidy refund and issue of surcharge under Biodiversity Act.
Addressing the media, Mukundan said that the state was one of the most positively moving states in the country in terms of responsiveness and industrial relations.
He informed that keeping in focus the need for skill development among youth CII has opened a skill development centre at Chhindwara where 820 youth mostly from scheduled caste and tribe community have already completed training. He also said that numerous other such centres are in the pipeline in the state for imparting training in various sectors of industry.