MP misses industrial policy deadline

Amid confusion, a cash crunch, a multi-crore inter-corporate deposit (ICD) scam and red tape, the department of commerce and industries in Madhya Pradesh has failed to announce the amended new Industrial and Employment Policy, which is an overhauled version of the Industrial Promotion Policy 2004.

Soon after the "Khajuraho Investors Meet", Department of Industries Principal Secretary O P Rawat told Business Standard that the new version of the policy would be placed before Cabinet in the first week of February.

However, a recent Cabinet meeting skipped the announcement of new policy.

According to industry sources, as many as 13 notifications of the policy, launched in 2004 by the Uma Bharti government, are still pending. In May last year, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had promised the new policy would be launched within a month.

"The state department of industry is building castles in the air by signing deals repeatedly with those who have no interest in investing. Even local chambers can do better than what Ficci had done at the recent Khajuraho meet," said the president of a local chamber on condition of anonymity, adding, "the present government is obsessed with NRIs and is ignoring local industrialists who can make more investment than any NRI, and making false claims of attracting more than Rs 100,000 crore investment."

Industry sources say they feel "cheated" since the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has made no announcement on employment to local people. An Employment Board created by the Uma Bharti government has become a dead organisation.

Soon after taking over from Babulal Gaur, Chouhan made an announcement on implementing a much faster "Single Table" system to replace the "Single Window" system.