Hyderabad: The new industrial policy announced by TS government (TS-iPASS) to give online approvals for industries within 15 days through self certification mode has been getting a good response.
As many as 2,109 industries/ units were approved from January 2015 to March 2016, amounting to investments of Rs 34,914 crore. These industries and units together have provided employment to 1.31 lakh.
Industries minister Jupally Krishna Rao informed the Legislative Assembly on Sunday that under the new policy, proposals of the industrial units with investments worth more than Rs 5 crore in plant and machinery are being processed at the state-level and those below Rs 5 crore were being processed at district-level.
Mr Krishna Rao said at state-level alone, as many as 396 units worth Rs 31,631 crore in investments and providing employment to 98,364 youths were cleared and another 1,623 units, worth Rs 3,283 crore in investments and providing employment to 33,225 youths were cleared at the district-level.
He added that about 100 investment proposals were granted approval by the government in six rounds during the last seven months.
“Of the 396 units approved by the government under the new policy, about 166 have already commenced production. This proves how effective our new industrial policy is. Though single window online approval system is not a new thing in the country with many states adopting this policy, the unique feature of our policy is that our single window is without grills while others have grills,” Mr Krishna Rao said.
However, the Opposition Congress alleged that the government has been delaying disbursing incentives to investors, which has been discouraging them from investing in the state.
“The government is attracting investments by luring them with huge incentives. But in reality, it is keeping the disbursal of incentives pending which is not good in the long run. Even the link on incentives on industries website is not working properly,” said Congress MLA Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy.
Parigi Congress MLA T. Rammohan Reddy said, “On the one hand, the government is promising VAT exemption and on the other, it’s collecting VAT and promising investors it would be reimbursed later. What is the point in collecting it now and reimbursing it later? This is posing a problem for investors.”
