Officials told to expedite clearances for industries

Vijayawada: Commissioner of Industries Siddharth Jain set new performance targets for the officers of the Single Desk Portal dealing with permissions for new industries and expansions to expedite the process of permission to the new applicants for establishing the industries.

He said that he was happy to note that the performance of Single Desk Portal of the Industries Department is so enhanced that the number of rejected applications for industries have come down from 206 to 45 in the last three months.

Presiding over a meeting of Single Desk Bureau here on Thursday, Siddharth Jain said the permissions should be granted for industries within the stipulated Service Level Agreement (SLA) period. He recalled that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been showcasing performance of the Single Desk Portal at international conferences to the business communities.

The commissioner asked the officials from all over the state and across the departments not to have a single case of approval beyond SLA period. He further directed the officials not to reject any application for establishment of industry without bring to his notice.

The commissioner was happy with 98.85 per cent of the applications were approved within the SLA, but reiterated that the target of the government was to make it 100 per cent. He asked the officials not to take approvals beyond the SLA.

Observing that several approvals are kept pending or rejected for not getting building permissions and land allotments or approvals, the commissioner sought explanation from the revenue officials and directed them to give approvals as per the existing law that encourages investors.

Siddharth Jain also proposed relaxation in the charges levied by Urban Development authorities or panchayats as well as industries department authorities and directed the officials to make a note to the government regarding it.

The commissioner also sought to propose the reduction of open space and tax for that in the industries like cold storage, in which the open spaces are being decided as per the norms and conditions for commercial or residential buildings. Hence, the department of industries shall make the proposal for reducing the open space for industries like that in future.

The Industries department of Andhra Pradesh cleared Rs. 67.5 crore of incentives to 72 industrial units through 167 claims; interest subsidy on bank loan, mortgage duty, power cost, sales tax and stamp duty as part of industrial encouragement incentives to boost industrial growth in the sunrise state.

The state-level committee on Thursday mulled over the issues pending before district-level committees and cleared the proposals for new units as well as extensions. In line with the government’s intention to attract industrialists with quality power, the incentives also were given largely to subsidise the power cost for new industries.