In an attempt to speed up industrialisation, the state government has planned to revive sick industries in Uttar Pradesh by extending them sops that include deferment in payment of power dues and change in land laws. A senior official told The Pioneer here on Tuesday that the blue print of the project was ready and would be put up for Cabinet approval.
“The only grey area in the proposal is objection raised by Power department which says that the government should first clear power dues on these industries and later the same should be realised by the Industries department in a phased manner,” the official said.
He added that the Industry department was not in favour of deferment of the power bills. “It wants that the power bills should be cleared by the government. The onus of clearing the power dues should not be on the Industry department,” he pointed out. The government proposes to give some window period to these industries to clear their dues. It will offer sops in the form of deferment in payment of power dues, relax tax realisation and also provide market to some industries.
Sources say that the proposal of revival of the sick units hangs between Industries, Housing and Power departments. The power bill of these industries runs into several crore as these have not been cleared since ages. Secondly, when these industries were set up in the 80s, they were outside the city limit but now many of these units are part of the city. The Housing department has been roped in to give suggestion about utilisation of the excess land of these units. There are around 100 industries – small and medium – that are in BIFR. The production in these industrial units has come to a stand still for the last decade and a half. “Over 50,000 employees of these industries will be benefited if these industries are revived. These industries can provide raw material for other existing units,” the officer said.