Mr Pradeep Bhargava, Chairman, CII WR
Commenting on the Union Budget, Mr Pradeep Bharagava, Chairman, CII Western Region said that, “This budget has a number of investments that would benefit the states in Western India. Incentives in the areas of industrial corridors, road construction, rural development, textile and renewable energy would definitely promote development and investments in these states.”
Industrial Corridors
The Finance Minster announced that DMIC has progressed rapidly, and now work on new smart industrial cities at Dholera in Gujarat and Shendra Bidkin in Maharashtra will start in 2013-14. In order to encourage development and assure Central Government funding support, the Finance Minister announced that if required, additional funds would be allocated over the next year in the overall outlay of the DMIC project. He also announced that preliminary work to develop the Bengaluru Mumbai Industrial Corridor will begin.
Mr Ashank Desai, Founder, Mastek Ltd commented, “In the long term, projects like DMIC and the proposed industrial corridor between Bengaluru and Mumbai will spell new investments along the corridors and augur well for the overall industrial development in these states.”
Road Construction
For the road sector, recognizing the challenges faced, the Finance Minister announced the setting up of a regulatory authority for the road sector. In order to address bottlenecks in the road construction sector 3,000 kms of road projects in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh will be awarded in the first half of 2013-14. Thus, the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are expected to benefit with an upgraded road network.
Rural Development
On the rural development front, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) would receive Rs 21,700 crore and since several states have already achieved the objectives of PMGSY, a new scheme PMGSY-II was announced and under this scheme funds would be allocated to several states, including Maharashtra. However details of the scheme are still awaited.
Textile
The Finance Minister proposed to set up Apparel Parks (for apparel manufacturing units) within the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) and Rs 50 crore has therefore been allocated to the Ministry of Textiles. Further, the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) for the textile sector would be continued while modernisation of the powerloom sector was encouraged with a provision of Rs 2,400 crore in 2013-14. A scheme to address the environmental issues faced by the textile industry was also announced.
Mr Pradeep Bharagava commented, “The addition of apparel parks in the STIP scheme would benefit Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which have a number of textile parks under this scheme. These measures would supplement existing measures by state governments, like the Gujarat Textile Policy, and incentives to textile units in Madhya Pradesh under the Industrial Promotion Policy.”
Green Energy
The Finance Minister also gave a boost to the renewable energy sector, addressing the issue of high cost of finance. The central government would therefore provide low interest bearing funds to renewable energy projects via IREDA from the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) for a period of five years. The wind energy sector also received incentives by the re-introduction of generation-based incentives for wind energy projects, and fund allocations of Rs 800 crore to the Ministry of Non Renewable Energy.
Mr R Mukundan, Deputy Chairman, CII WR and Managing Director, Tata Chemicals mentioned that, “Renewable energy industries in the Western states would benefit from low finance costs and the various schemes proposed would benefit industry in the states of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh that are working in this area.”
Mumbai, 28 February 2013