Indian Express
Sign In | Register Now
Newsletter | ePaper
Indian Express >  National Network >  Date Line > 

With ‘envious’ neighbours, state fears for its sops

Font Size
Ashwani Sharma Posted: Oct 06, 2008 at 0002 hrs IST
Related Stories: Kandhamal may be breaking point for BJD, BJPManali-Leh rail project gathers steamThe ‘Oxford of the East’ goes WestIn poll season, foes turn friends
: The special tax holiday for Himachal Pradesh — sanctioned by the Centre in 2003 to boost investments in the industrially backward state — will end by 2010. The concession was originally granted till 2013, but bigger states, including neighbours Punjab and Haryana, didn’t want Himachal to get special benefits that would put them at an economic disadvantage. Hence, the UPA Government decided to curtail these benefits, first up to 2007, but later to 2010 after protests from the state”s Congress leadership. Now, getting the industrial package extended up to 2013 is a challenging task for Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who had convinced former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Union minister for disinvestment Arun Shourie to grant a 10-year tax holiday to Himachal.

Last month, Dhumal got a unanimous resolution passed by the state Assembly, asking the Centre to restore the package till 2013. Armed with facts and figures on the losses the state will suffer if the benefits are terminated early, Dhumal met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram. He not only pleaded Himachal’s case but also tried to counter claims of the neighbouring states about migration of industries to the hill state. He handed over a letter to the PM mentioning statistics from the Secretariat for Industrial Approvals (SIA) detailing year-wise investment intentions in states — these figures did not indicate any such industrial migration. According to the SIA, in 2007-2008, while Haryana received investment proposals to the tune of Rs 6,350 crore and Punjab Rs 10,737, Himachal was standing at Rs 3,596 crore.

No established industrial group from the two states moved to Himachal and most investment proposals, received by the state were from industrial houses that had little presence in the north.

After the package was announced, the state has already received investment proposals of about Rs 31,000 crore. This is a record for Himachal, which earlier depended on its tourism and fruit sectors. If even half of this intended investment materialises,the state’s economic scenario will change within 10 years.

Ads By Google
Himachal’s biggest disadvantage is lack of infrastructure and connectivity, but that hasn’t deterred new investors. Only last week, the state’s Single Window Authority, headed by the CM, cleared proposals worth around Rs 3,100 crore. These include a Delhi-based company’s Rs 2,400-crore project to manufacture silicon solar panels at Baddi. A sugar mill, textile units, auto-spare parts and biotech...

Post Comments
Message*
Maximum characters allowed     
 
Name* Email ID*
Subject* Country*
TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).
I agree to the terms of use.
View all Messages [ 0 ]
View all Messages [ 0 ]
Group Websites : Express India | Financial Express | Screen India | Loksatta | Kashmir Live | Biz Publications
Privacy Policy | Feedback | Site MapThe Indian Express Group | Work With Us | Adverise With Us | Contact Us© 2008 Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd. All rights reserved
*Recipient(s) name *
*Recipient(s) e-mail address *
(Separate addresses by commas)
*Your Name *
*Your e-mail address *
Select your Country
Comments(optional)

The name(s) and e-mail address(es) you provide will
not be used for any purpose other than to inform the
recipient(s) of your identity. (*mandatory field)
 
Close