The Centre has extended the central industrial package for Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand till March 2013. This was announced by Union Commerce and Industries minister Anand Sharma here.
The minister clarified that all benefits of the Centre’s concessional industrial package 2003, other than excise exemption, still stood.
“After my talk with the PM it was decided to continue the industrial package till 2013. Only one clause (excise) has been changed,” Sharma said here at a CII meet.
“The UPA is a fair and judicious government.The package is being extended despite protests by Punjab and Gujarat,” he said.
The decision came hours before the BJP’s proposed ‘injustice rally’ led by party president Nitin Gadkari in Shimla on Sunday in protest against the expiry of the industrial package after March 2010. The package had been announced by the NDA government in 2003.
Meanwhile, the state is also going to have a spice park at Nadaun in Hamirpur district soon, Sharma said.
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“The park will have a storage capacity of 1,000 million tonnes. Rs 27 crore has already been released for this park,” added the minister.
The minister inaugurated an effluent treatment plant in the industrial town of Baddi, which has a capacity of treating 60 million gallons of water.
The Centre has also decided to revive the dying Kangra tea industry through the tea board.
“We are going to rehabiliate 10,000 hectares tea growing area through the tea board,” Sharma said.
“Since the demand of organic tea is very high, we also plan to promote organic tea. The tea board will soon open an office in Palampur,” he said.
The British began cultivation of the Kangra tea in 1882 in and around the Palampur foothills in the Kangra valley some 260-km from here.
The production as well as demandhas seen a drop in recent years