| Years on, SIDCO remains soft on defaulters | | Fails to cancel land allotment of defaulting entrepreneurs | | Akshay Azad
ET Report
Jammu, Mar 9: The softness shown by Jammu and Kashmir State Industrial Development Corporation (JKSIDCO) Limited towards defaulting entrepreneurs has been portending towards a big nexus between politicians and retired officials of Corporation, SICOP, Department of Industries and Commerce.
As despite the lapse of years together, ranging from two to seven years, since expiry of sizeable time given for entrepreneurs for implementation of their project, the authority has failed to cancel allotment of land given in Industrial Growth Centre Samba, due to reasons best known to them.
As per data furnished by JKSIDCO, it has been come to fore that a total of 23 unit holders, to whom land was allotted in Industrial Growth Center Samba had failed to implement their projects.
According to terms and conditions of lease deed, sources said, the unit holders were required to take steps for implementation of their projects and put to productions within a period of six months from the date of execution of lease deed. "It is also provided in the lease deed that land is liable to be cancelled in case of failure of the promoters to set up their units within stipulated time period", sources said.
Some of these defaulters are Chander-Bagha Packers (1.50 Kanal land), Asian Plastic Industries (1 Kanal), Royal Industries (2 Kanal) and Krishna Industries (2 Kanal land). They were allotted land and lease deed was executed in 2008 but after lapse of nearly seven years, the lease deed was not cancelled.
Similarly, Gagan Conductors (8), Prathan Infotech(3), Mohan Industries (2), PC Industries (1) in year 2009, while two others get execution of land deed in 2010, one in 2011, three in 2012 and nine others in 2013.
All these 23 entrepreneurs have failed to take steps for implementation of their projects but expect issuance of notices, nothing has been done in last many years.
"There is negligible land vacant in all 20 Industrial Estates across Jammu province but in reality most of allotted land is in possession of some politicians and retired officials of J&K Industries Department, SIDCO, who have made it a Real Estate business. Cost of one Kanal land is Rs. 2 Lakh for entrepreneurs but the same entrepreneur resold it to Rs. 12-15 per Kanal", sources said, adding that in such way, huge profit was being made.
In Jammu province, 2000 units are officially registered, sources said, but only 1000 are functional, which means nearly half of units are either not established or not working, wasting the allotted land.
"The revelations in case of SIDCO Samba is just tip of an iceberg and in actual sense it is a deep rooted nexus and if investigated, many former ministers and ex officials of Industry and Commerce and SIDCO, SICOP will be caught", sources said. |
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