The Hindu Business Line : Vizag SSIs allege official harassment

SMALL-scale entrepreneurs and industrialists in Visakhapatnam district have urged the Commissioner of Industries to take stringent action against the General Manager, District Industries Centre (DIC), for his alleged harassment of the industrialists and his "destructive tendencies''.

Releasing a copy of the petition sent to the Commissioner of Industries at a press meet here on Thursday, Mr G. Hanumanthaiah, President of Visakha Autonagar Small-Scale Industrialists' Welfare Association, said the official was bent on stalling all files relating to the units purely on technical grounds and "if he continues here, no new industries will come up in the district and even the existing ones will find it difficult to survive.'' Citing examples, he said Visakha Refractories had to suffer for more than six months, as the official was not willing to release molasses required for the process.

The unit could not honour its commitment to the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant on time because of the official's apathy. Even for granting permanent registration to an industry, the official was appointing multi-disciplinary committees. The units were also being denied sales tax incentives.

Mr Hanumanthaiah said the SSIs and few ancillaries dependent on the steel plant, the BHPV and other public sector units here, were passing through a rough phase and the official was making life even more difficult for them.

Mr Vimal Singh Sethia, another entrepreneur, said the DIC had become a prosecuting agency, and not a promotional one, in the district. Many of the entrepreneurs also complained that the steel plant authorities here were supplying by-products such as slag to the small entrepreneurs at ex-delivery price, and not ex-factory price, putting them at a disadvantage.

They attributed the sickness of the local slag cement units to this factor and urged the VSP to supply them slag at ex-factory rates.

Mr G.S. Sivaiah, Managing Director, Satyadev Precision Enginering Works Ltd, said that even though VSP was a major steel plant and several PSUs had come up in Visakhapatnam, ancillarisation could not be achieved due to these bottlenecks. "These major projects are of little use, if they do not promote local industrial growth and create employment opportunities for the locals,'' he said.

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