After the Finance Department raised certain objections to the industrial policy, the proposal has apparently hit a dead end. A policy blueprint was approved in July this year but now the administration’s top brass is maintaining silence on the issue. Both wings of the administration — industries and finance — have failed to reach a consensus on certain issues of the policy, which was set to be launched by the first week of August this year.

The Chandigarh Administration had claimed to change the definition of the city industry by including industries such as information technology, biotech, telecom, retailing, healthcare, entertainment and vocational institutions besides the already existing automobile servicing, manufacturing and warehousing in its gambit.

The proposal was to convert the industrial area in the city into the Chandigarh Industrial Business Park. The city industrialists, who were upbeat about the policy, slammed the administration last month when they found that none of their long-pending demands (which were included in the draft policy) found any space in the ‘going-to-be-approved’ industrial policy.

The Chandigarh Administration had earmarked 1,475 acres of land for Industrial Area Phase-I and II, which came into existence in 1970. The city has nearly 2,100 small-scale industrial units, including one large and seven mediumscale units located in its periphery but separated by a green belt. These units manufacture a wide variety of products, with an annual turnover of nearly Rs 1,430 crore.

“Industrialists are thinking of their own personal gains but we have to take into account the entire infrastructure burden, which would increase manifold if industrialists’ demands are met. At present, the entire policy is being re-considered. Once we work out all the modalities, we will notify the policy,” said a senior official of the UT Administration .

... contd.