NEW DELHI, Aug 15: The Industry Ombudsman has registered only 10 letters since its appointment four months ago. And none of them relate to investment proposals. Industry Minister Murasoli Maran had appointed Ajai Vikram Singh, the additional secretary and financial advisor in the Ministry as Industry Ombudsman as a troubleshooter for domestic and foreign investors in April.

The idea behind the move was to set up a direct feedback mechanism to solve the problems faced by companies. It was hoped that the private sector would come up with suggestions on how to improve the licensing and foreign investment approval process. The model of the Banking Ombudsman was followed for this purpose.

While about 20 letters were received by the Ombudsman's office, only 10 were found fit to be registered. Of the 10, four related to the sugar industry which does not directly fall under the Industry Ministry's purview. The Food Ministry handles all approvals for setting up sugar mills based on reccomendations made by the state Government. The Industry Ministry comes into the picture only at the stage of granting the actual license.

One sugar unit wrote and complained against the state Government for giving preferential treatment to another sugar unit. There were couple of letters which complained against the Exim policy about which the Industry Ombudsman can do little. Another letter related to the transfer of a letter of intent for a beer manufacturing plant handled by the Ministry of Food Processing Industry.

Ministry officials are surprised at the quality of response to the Ombudsman. ``Most of the letters have nothing to do with investment problems and do not even come under the Ministry of Industry,'' says an official. The response is particularly surprising because the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion handles processes about 700 cases of foreign and domestic investment every month. ``We are tempted to believe that the industry has not found much fault in the processing of investment proposals,'' an official said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.