Subsidy for women-run industry cells

The Union ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises has approved a scheme for giving up to 90 per cent subsidy to industrial clusters run by women.

The assistance will be available only for setting up exhibition or marketing centres in the clusters.

This apart, another scheme enabling 40 per cent subsidy on infrastructure projects in the clusters was approved by the ministry recently, said Jawhar Sircar, additional secretary and development commissioner, ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises, government of India, at the last annual general meeting of the Howrah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI).

Last fiscal, Rs 100 crore was disbursed by the Centre to the states under various incentive schemes for cluster development.

Out of this, Rs 25 crore was availed by Kerala alone.

The share of West Bengal was Rs 5 crore.

With nearly 25 clusters coming up in West Bengal in the next two to three years, Sircar said this year the state could get up to Rs 45 crore as Central subsidy.

Till now , 19 cluster development projects in West Bengal have been approved by the Centre, and four were waiting the Centre's nod, said Aariz Aftab, director, micro and small scale enterprises and textiles department, government of West Bengal.

Some of the recent projects approved in Howrah includes parks for foundry, metal and sports goods like shuttlecocks, he said.

The Howrah foundry park project was yet to see the light of the day, as it had been lingering on for the last twenty years, said Sircar.

Though the government has approved the project, land acquisition was posing problems in the project, he said.

"The foundry project is going ahead, though it is stuck in land acquisition problems," he said.

HCCI has proposed setting up a rolling mill park in the Jagatballavpur area at the Howrah district.

Initially, the park was to be set up by the Howrah Foundry Association, Federation of Small and Medium Industries and HCCI. However, due to lack of consensus among the three parties, HCCI is now alone pursuing the project.

"We have found out land in Jagatballvpur, where people were eager to sell land directly to the chamber," said Sankar Shyamal, president of HCCI.

He expressed concerns about the directives of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board regarding the carbon emission levels from industries at the Howrah-Liluah belt.

"The modern thinking of the environmentalists coupled with the judicial verdicts put small and medium enterprises in the Howrah area in a conundrum. There is an apprehension that small industries in Howrah will have to shift from their old locations in Howrah town to far away. This would sound the death knell for them," he said.