Only last week the State Administrative Council gave its nod to the adoption of new industrial policy for the State with a ten year-long tenure beginning April 1, 2016. We have already reflected on that in one of our editorials. However, now we have in hand a detailed copy of almost all aspects of new industrial policy, which show that fairly good deal of homework has been done by the State Industries and Commerce Department. An ambitious policy has been drafted and almost all relevant aspects have been taken into account. These pertain to investment, land acquisition, power supply and provision for raw material, employment opportunities and retrieval of sick industries, utilization of unutilized land and a variety of other related matters.
The new industrial policy amply demonstrates the important role of industry in economic development of the State and more particularly employment of unemployed youth. Some landmark decisions have been incorporated in the new policy. It is proposed to make it possible for attracting Rs. 20,000 crore in the industrial sector over a period of 10 years– Rs 2000 crore per annum and create over 15,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities annually for the unemployed/educated youth. Moreover, all the existing industrial estates will be transferred to the SICOP and SIDCO so as to ensure that District Industries Centers (DICs) lay exclusive focus on hand-holding the new entrepreneurs. Significantly, new policy envisages investment in new enterprises and retrieval of sick and defunct industries by providing support to investment and technical expertise. New policy takes into consideration the importance of widening the space for fresh and small scale entrepreneurs to add to the health of the economy. For this purpose, the policy will focus on all the three regions of the State, encouraging utilization of locally available raw materials and mineral resources, promoting growth of thrust industries and encouraging hi-tech and knowledge based industries including Electronics and Information Technology. We find that while stress is laid on inducting new industries or retrieving defunct industries, at the same time full attention will be given to the induction of modern and advanced technology in these industries. Another important aspect of the new policy is that it envisages transferring all the existing industrial estates with the DICs to J&K SICOP and SIDCO. This measure is expected to give a boost to the development of Micro and Small Scale Industry while simultaneously leaving the DICs free to focus and concentrate on hand-holding the new entrepreneurs from conception of the project to the registration and subsequently to operation and continuous production while clearing incentives under the State and Central Packages.
Land, labour and capital remain the fundamental pre-requisites of any industry. But acquisition of land has become a crucial issue owing to extraordinary demand for land as India is a developing country. Besides scarcity of land, another problem is that landowners are reluctant to give their lands although there is the Land Acquisition Act passed by the Parliament which makes it binding on land owners to surrender their land if needed for genuine developmental project. According to new industrial policy, the Government will create land bank of 20,000 kanals of land across the State apart from retrieving the unutilized land for industrial purposes. Emphasis will be on locations outside the urban areas. For this purpose, available State land suitable for industry will be transferred to the Industries and Commerce Department, which will draw up an action plan for creation of the land bank of 20,000 kanals including State land over the first five years of the Industrial Policy and approve annual targets keeping in view the availability and expected allocation of funds.
However, the question that needs to be discussed is firstly, whether our state does have the climate and environment of expanding and deepening industrial enterprise in consonance with the broad aspects of the new industry policy spelt out in preceding lines? Second is whether the pre-requisites especially, connectivity, power and raw material will be assured to the old and the new industrial units that are likely to come up as a result of incentives offered by the Government. We understand that good deal of homework has been done in drawing the outlines of the new policy yet keeping in mind the experience gained from previous instances and failures, the department shall have to make it certain that old mistakes and shortcomings are not allowed to supervene this time. SIDCO and SICOP are given due importance for their significant role in the industrialization of the State. Raising industrial parks is easy said than done. We are not adopting negative attitude to the reforms. Far from that, we are only apprehensive that a very good and well-thought of industrial policy should have the good luck to be floated in letter and in spirit. After all, welfare of lakhs of people is closely linked with the success of the industrial policy. More than 2.25 lakh people are employed in it and if the new policy succeeds it is estimated that 1.5 lakh people will get employment.
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