Govt fast-tracking proposed Ratnagiri paper mill plant

Government is fast-tracking setting up of a Rs 3,650 crore paper mill in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, which was earlier proposed to be set up at Jagdishpur in Amethi, represented by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha.
A proposal in this regard will be placed before the Union Cabinet for approval within two months, Union Minister Anant Geete said today.
The proposal for setting up of this plant at the new location has been made by Heavy Industries Ministry, headed by Geete who himself is from Maharashtra.
"We are definitely fast-tracking it (the setting up of Jagdishpur paper mill). We have sent the file related to the proposal to Finance Ministry. It should come before the Union Cabinet for approval in a couple of months," Geete told PTI.

A Parliamentary panel has asked the government to expedite the project, citing considerable delay.
"In the opinion of the Committee, the project has already witnessed a great deal of delay due to extraneous factor and now it should be fast-tracked to get all approvals on priority and the mill should be established at the earliest," the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, chaired by K C Tyagi, said in its report.

The Greenfield Paper Mill project was conceived in 2008 and finally approved by the Cabinet headed by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in February 2014. But the project got stalled for long period due to litigation related to the land identified for setting up the mill at Jagdishpur.

As per the cabinet approval of that time, the green field pulp and paper project at Jagdishpur was to be set up at a cost of Rs 3,650 crore in two phases.
Besides, Geete said, the financial condition of state-run
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) will improve next year as it has secured new orders worth Rs 22,000 crore. He also ruled out disinvestment for the company.
"BHEL had not been performing well since the last 1-2 years. However, BHEL currently has new orders worth Rs 22,000 crore. Therefore its position will improve significantly next year," the Minister said.
Supporting testinng agency ARAI's findings on Volkswagen, Geete said: "ARAI's findings are correct. The emission norms have been violated. Therefore we had issued a showcause notice to Volkswagen. In its reply to the showcause notice, Volkswagen admitted that it has violated emission norms and therefore it recalled the vehicles.

"To deny it now is not appropriate. We have referred the matter to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for further action".
The automaker had earlier insisted its cars sold in India are not equipped with the 'defeat device' and they did not violate BS IV emission norms in the country. The crisis-hit firm has been found to have deployed this device to cheat on emission tests in cars sold in various countries, including the US.
A government-ordered probe by ARAI here also found violations on the part of the company, following which Volkswagen recently announced recall of 3,23,700 vehicles sold in India between 2008 and 2015.

Geete also said the National Policy on Capital Goods has been prepared after extensive industry consultations which will be placed before the Cabinet in a month's time.
Department of Heavy Industry and Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship today signed an MoU for capital goods and automotive sector for large scale capacity building by providing infrastructure and facilities, improving training content, curriculum and methodology and use of latest technologies, during a conference.
The Ministers also announced that the 9th edition of WIN India 2015, the country's leading Industrial and engineering trade fair, will be held here from December 9-11.
The purpose of the MoU is to create centres of excellence for different manufacturing skills and a multi-location national institute of manufacturing technologies for training education and research by utilizing/upgrading the existing training facilities of Central PSUs such as HMT, BHEL and Instrumentation Ltd. Under the DHI.

Under the MoU, all Central PSUs have committed to invest at least 20 per cent of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for skilling purpose. They have also committed to provide equipment and machinery, which has been phased out of production line, but could still be used for training purposes to training institutions.
The MoU will also enable significant scale up of apprentice training in the central PSUs under the Department of Heavy Industry and promote adoption of ITIs by these Central PSUs.