bihar’s new industrial policy to be ready by June

PATNA: The state government is set to announce the new Industrial Incentive (promotion) Policy (IIP), 2011, in June. It would be mandatory for the departments concerned to issue their matching notifications within a month after the policy is announced.

The last IIP of the state was announced in 2006, which expired on March 31 this year, but the government extended its term till December this year.

Industries department principal secretary C K Mishra, who gave a brief preview of the new IIP at a meet organized by Bihar Chamber of Commerce (BCC) on Monday, said that details of incentives to be provided to both new and old industrial units had been made simple; they had been categorized into preproduction incentives, post-production incentives, tax incentives, and other incentives.

Incentives are proposed to be given even to big investors investing up to Rs 1,000 crore. The government has proposed to create land bank for which Rs 1,500 crore had been earmarked, and the land acquisition process had already begun.

The IIP 2011 draft has been kept unambiguous, so that it leaves nothing much for interpretation. In the past, interpretation of various provisions had led to complication in the implementation of various incentives related to power and subsidy, among other things, which put off the investors.

Mishra said that CM Nitish Kumar himself held a high-level review meeting last week and gave the required directive to all the departments and agencies, including the Bihar State Electricity Board(BSEB), which was asked to define the incentives to be given to industry in the consumption of power. It had to be transparent and clear leaving no scope for interpretation at any level, Mishra said and added that he himself had held 10 separate meetings with both the business and industry circles before preparing the draft IIP 2011.

“The meetings showed that 90% problems of investors were related to power, and only 10% concerned others. The CM had asked the BSEB to put everything with utmost clarity. Whatever the BSEB formulated, we have put it in the new IIP,” Mishra said, adding that incentive and registry payments would be made online to make the system transparent. The system would become operational in “two to three months”.

Mishra said that Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) and Infrastructure Development Authority (IDA) would help the investors in acquiring land. The government would invite willing landholders to give details of land quoting its price to BIADA through the DM concerned. Besides, the IIP 2011 would spell out the limits of the stamp duty charged