The proposal of the Karnataka government to hand over the four industrial estates in Mysore to the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) has been opposed by industry in Mysore.
The move is described as violative of 74th Amendment to the Constitution and contradictory to the government’s move to set up an authority for industrial areas, a process which is already in motion.
While opposing the announcement of the chief minister in Mysore recently to accept a proposal of officials to bring one of the four industrial areas in Mysore within the MCC jurisdiction, Micro, Small and Medium Industries Association General Secretary Sureshkumar Jain urged B S Yeddyurappa to drop the proposal and instead speed up the formation of the authority.
Highlighting the issues confronting industrialists in Mysore, in a statement on the eve of the divisional level-industrial adalat on April 27 in Mysore, he said the failure to allot sites to industries over the last three years; to locate a place for the disposal of solid waste in Mysore and Nanjangud industrial areas; to meet the infrastructure needs adequately; to provide seed money to SSIs and non-release of Rs 4 crore subsidy; and the file on one-time settlement of development loans lying in cold storage in the Vidhana Soudha had affected industrial development in Mysore district.
He also listed promises made in 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets that still remain unimplemented. The announcement of an IT/BT zone in Mysore, the lone announcement made in the 2008-09 budget, also remained in the book, Jain criticised.
He pointed out that the committee for revival of sick industries had not met for many years. In the name of industries, tanks, their banks, channel areas, civic amenity sites, and industrial sites were becoming commercial spaces. Though the centre provided Rs 15-crore aid for separate industry clusters, the fund was not being utilised by the state as sites are not being allotted or developed cluster-wise.
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According to the Department of Industries, the district had 24,000 SSIs. However, this was far from reality. Therefore, a separate enumeration of industries with their product details, e-mail address and mobile numbers should be collected, and an industry directory be published. Similarly, an import-export directory was also urgently needed, he said.
While the higher load-shedding for industries had slowed the pace of industrial activity, Jain said the failure to implement a supervisory control and data acquisition scheme had driven industries into losses.
He underlined the need to implement the Industrial Facility Section 2002, Industrial Policy 2009-14 of the state government and the Micro, Small and Medium Industries Development Act 2006 of the Central Government by the Department of Industries. He also urged more powers to the Single Window Agency and the District Industries Centres.
Jain hoped that the twice-postponed adalat covering Mysore, Mandya, Kodagu and Chamarajanagar districts would not be a formality like the previous ones, but would give serious thought to resolving industry woes.