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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Committees and reports unable to revive sick industries

The government formed around a dozen committees in last 10 years to study and revive sick-industries in the country. All of them recommended ways to revive them but none could precisely categorize which were sick-industries.
As a result, there has been no change in the situation of sick industries since 1994 when the first committee was formed.
Recently the government formed 8-member Sick-Industries Rehabilitation High-Level Task Force (SIRHLTF) under the leadership of Dipendra Bahadur Kshetry, vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) to categorize sick-industries, their problems and find solutions. However, the 20-pages report does not clarify on definition of sick-industries.
"It has already been six months since the report was finalized," a ministry official said on condition of anonymity "Report says what facilities to give to the sick industries but does not say precisely which are the sick industries and that is the main reason for not getting anywhere."
“Six industries have applied for immediate relief at the Ministry of Industry,” the official said. “But we can´t proceed since there is no legal categorization of the sick-industries.”
SIRHLTF paves the way for sick industries to multiple facilities such as postponement of bank loan repayment, restructuring of loan, waiver of tax.
In the annex, the report has listed 26 companies that applied to be categorized as sick-industries . "These are the industries that applied for benefits that we have set for sick-industries," Kshetry said, "But, we are yet to make a technical committee which will fix criteria for sick-industries."
Contrary to the Keshtry´s claim, Umakant Jha, secretary of the MoI, said the ministry was preparing to submit the report to the cabinet for approval. The MoI has reserved the process of implementation saying that it doesn´t have any legal ground to execute them without cabinet´s approval.
Previously, a similar high level committee was formed in 2010 under the leadership of secretary of the MoI. The report however, was replaced by a new one of SIRHLTF. “But there is not much difference between two reports,” said a source at the MoI.
According to Anil Kumar Thakur, joint secretary of the MoI, preparations were ongoing to incorporate definition of sick-industries in the Industrial Enterprises Act (IEA) which is in final stages.

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