KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, April 17: The Hemant Soren government’s lukewarm approach towards the promotion of industries seems to put aspiring entrepreneurs on the back foot.
Under the new policy, the Jharkhand Industrial Area Development Authority (JIADA) which caters to the needs of an entrepreneur, including providing land for setting up the industry has shown a cold shoulder to entrepreneurs so far as getting the necessary plot of land is concerned.
The Jharkhand government in the year 2017 had eased the norms for an entrepreneur to get a plot of land on an installment basis. The entrepreneur would be able to buy the land in 10 installments within a span of five years.
“Several entrepreneurs who did not have a very sound financial background succeeded in setting up their startups as they got a chance to buy land in installments. But since August 2022, the scenario changed completely as unfortunately, the present government did not retain this policy which his predecessor had started in 2017. Now an entrepreneur is supposed to pay a cent per cent value of government land at a time for setting up an industry. As a result of the situation, almost no new industry has come to being in the state since August 2022,” explained Ashok Kumar Bihany, consultant, Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) in Adityapur while talking to lagatar24.com.
Bihany pointed out that in the prevailing situation, only capitalists can think of setting up an industry.
“As an ardent advocate for the promotion of industrial development in the state, we had approached the present dispensation to stick to the earlier industry-friendly policy by meeting the authority concerned but in futile,” deplored the EMC consultant.
Giving a specific example of the setback suffered by the EMC due to the disadvantageous industrial policy, Bihany stated that they were hopeful of getting a good number of entrepreneurs in the EMC post-Covid, but not a single investor turned up since August last.
It may be mentioned here that in Adityapur-based EMC, there are about 100 flatted factory premises for manufacturing items in them. About 35 acres of land have been earmarked for setting up electronic components factories. But as of now, very negligible space has been occupied by entrepreneurs.
