*Delegation holds meeting with Chief Secy
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 22: Kashmir’s apex industrial body, the Federation of Chambers of Industries Kashmir (FCIK) has urged upon the J&K Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo to revamp and strengthen the Industries and Commerce department for owning the responsibility of facilitators, sponsors, promoters and collaborators envisaged for it in the vision, mission and core values of the massive programme for industrial growth and development in Jammu and Kashmir.
A formal meeting of FCIK delegation led by its president, Shahid Kamili was held with the Chief Secretary at Civil Secretariat Srinagar on Friday. The FCIK delegation included advisory / administrative Council members and presidents of 20 Industrial Estates from across Kashmir region.
While making a presentation on the status of existing industry, FCIK regretted that over past many years, the various wings of the department instead of handholding the existing and prospective enterprises were acting more of regulators than facilitators. The shortage of staff at all levels of the hierarchy had aggravated the situation as most of the times, as important as General Manager DIC’s positions were assigned to some other officers as additional assignment. FCIK demanded that officers posted here must have the vision and dynamism required for running a promotional department.
Demanding reframing of single composite and comprehensive Industrial Policy, FCIK informed that lot of confusion had been created among both the officers and entrepreneurs owing to three different policies currently applicable for different sets of industrial units. The composite policy should uniformly be applied to old and new enterprises.
FCIK sought providing due share to the local enterprises from public procurements which was being denied at present. They referred to the Central Government’s Public Procurement Policy, applicable in J&K as well, which provided for reservation of 25% of goods procured by the government for MSMEs besides reserving 358 items for exclusive procurement through MSEs and sought his intervention in implementing the guidelines by respective departments.
While opposing the idea of merging SICOP and SIDCO with single Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), FCIK said that both these corporations had been incepted with different objectives which were crucial for the industry. Both Corporations needed to be reinforced afresh with new vigor and renewed programme to support MSMES.
FCIK submitted a comprehensive document to the Chief Secretary with the charter of demands which include issues of delayed payments, revival and up-scaling of existing industry, resolving NPA issues, grant of amnesty and one time relaxation of rules etc.
Responding to the demands of FCIK, the Chief Secretary assured that all their genuine grievances shall be addressed in a time bound manner.
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