In view of the new industrial policy set to be unveiled in December, the government is working on a stricter act to make industries pay for construction and maintenance of infrastructure in the city’s industrial areas.

With the new act in place, the government will be able to take stringent disciplinary action against the firms who refuse to pay their dues, starting from cutting off water supply to seizing property.

To bring in this change the Delhi government will amend the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) Act to arm the department amply.

The move comes in view of the government’s failure last time to recover money for the Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) for each industrial area. Of Rs 113.22 crore the industries were supposed to pay for maintenance of the effluent plants, they only paid Rs 35.98 crore. The government ended up paying the rest to keep the CETPs running.

The government has to come up with stronger measures as it will soon launch the public private partnership (PPP) model for maintenance of the city’s industrial estates. The pilot projects for the PPP model will be located at Narela, Patparganj, Okhla and Bawana. Under the model, infrastructure in the area will be built and maintained by a joint committee of the industries and the government.

“Earlier, the problem was that the Industries department had powers to merely send notices to the defaulting industries. In extreme cases, they would write to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi or the Delhi Jal Board to cut supply. The departments, however, usually took it too long to respond,” a senior Delhi government official said.

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