The Chhattisgarh Government is mulling over plans to establish a mega industrial zone at an estimated cost of Rs177 crore near Raipur. The industrial zone would be spread over 1,730 hectares of land, official stated.
The industrial zone would be established for setting up of steel plants, power plants, captive power plants and other core industries. The zone would be developed by Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC).
Moreover, it may be recalled that the Government is also setting up an Export Facilitation Centre in Raipur at a cost of Rs7.50 crore. The Centre is being established under Central Government’s Assistance to States for Developing Export Infrastructure & Allied Activities (ASIDE) scheme.
The objective of the scheme is to involve the states in the export effort by providing assistance to the State Governments for creating appropriate infrastructure for the development and growth of exports, the ASIDE guidelines issued to the states mentioned.
The States do not perceive direct gains from the growth in exports from the State. Moreover, the States do not often have adequate resources to participate in funding of infrastructure for exports. The proposed scheme, therefore, intends to establish a mechanism for seeking the involvement of the State Governments in such efforts through assistance linked to export performance, it stated.
Regarding the approval of projects and their implementation, the guidelines stated- ‘There shall be a State-level Export Promotion Committee (SlEPC) headed by the Chief Secretary of the State and consisting of the Secretaries of concerned Departments at the State level and a representative of the States cell of the Department of Commerce (DoC) and the Joint Director General of Foreign Trade posted in that State/region and the Development Commissioners of the SEZ/EPZ in the State as Members.
The SlEPC will scrutinise and approve specific projects and oversee the implementation of the Scheme. Each State/UT shall appoint/designate one of its officers as Export Commissioner who shall be the convener of SlEPC and with whom DoC will interact on the issues pertaining to ASIDE.
He shall draw up five year and annual export plans for the State/UT in consultation with the trade and industry, the Export Promotion Councils and the DoC, it stated.
The SlEPC will ensure that the proposals will be location specific and selection of location and inter-se prioritising will be done by the SlEPC. For this, SlEPC will draw a list of centres to be focussed for developing export infrastructure over next 2-3 years and a shelf of projects will be kept in advance to take full advantage of this Scheme each year. The list of Centres may be drawn in consultation with Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) and other export promotion bodies.
On approval of the proposals by the SlEPC, funds shall be disbursed to the implementing agency of the project by the Nodal Agency. The State Governments are advised to put in place a system for Disbursement of funds by Nodal Agency to Implementing Agency of the project
Before sanctioning new projects, the SlEPC will allocate funds for the likely expenditure of the ongoing projects. The SlEPC will ensure that except in exceptional cases no new project has a gestation period of more than two years.
For outlays under the Central component, there shall be an Empowered Committee in the Department of Commerce, headed by the Commerce Secretary and consisting of representatives from the Planning Commission and the respective ministries to consider and sanction the proposals received as per the procedure.
The 20% Central component would be approved as per the delegation of powers under Financial Rules of Government of India. The 80% State component would be approved by the State Government as per the Rules of Business of the State Government, it stated.
The payments made under the scheme will be subject to audit by the Comptroller & Auditor General of India as also by other means as deemed fit by Government of India.
The Central Government will cause physical verification and other such enquiries as deemed fit, of the projects sanctioned under the Scheme.
The Implementing Agency of each project will see that wherever feasible, users of the infrastructure will pay a service charge for the same, which could meet the expenditure on operation and maintenance of the infrastructure so created, the guidelines stated.