MANISH GUPTA
Ranchi, June 25: Claiming that the state is “not at all business friendly”, the Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) has urged Chief Minister Hemant Soren to consult trade and industry for the state’s overall growth.
“The environment in the state is not at all business friendly. There are uncountable problems hindering business growth. The Chief Minister must take into consideration views of the trade and industry for proper development of the state,” said FJCCI Secretary Rahul Maroo.
Maroo said that the government has never consulted the FJCCI on issues being faced by the businessmen here. Further, the current Jharkhand government has never invited any trade and industries to the state since it came to power, he added.
“Policies and working attitude of the government officials are unfavourable to business. And, the ministers have no clue of what policies to be brought in. The government can at least call the stakeholders for meetings to understand the scenario,” he said.
While the power situation is strangulating the industry with long hours of power cuts, the unfortunate sand crisis has brought all construction activities to a complete halt simply due to lack of initiative by the state government ahead of the annual, country-wide National Green Tribunal (NGT) ban on sand uplifting during monsoons.
“The power quality has deteriorated. There are 8 to 10 hours of power cuts every day. No business can survive on DG sets. Besides, the sand crisis is so acute that L&T, developer of Ranchi Smart City, has given an ultimatum of winding up in the state.
“And, the most unfortunate part is that the government has not even taken cognizance of the warning. The government has failed to carry out auctions of the sand ghats for lifting of sand and it is not allowing sand from outside the state,” Maroo said.
The FJCCI has requested the Chief Minister for an urgent meeting to update him about other challenges like factory licence that is hard to get and the complete collapse of the Single Window System irrespective of the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) ranking of the state. Most of the startups have closed down as incentives stopped coming after the first instalment. The Chamber does not see any positive outlook in the near future.
“The head of the state should be ready to meet us. Both real estate and MSME, which are large employment generators, are struggling to survive. The condition of labourers is getting worse by the day,” the FJCCI Secretary said.
