The action on part of industries department comes soon after the Central government, vide its notification, 1/2008-Central Excise (C.E.), No.3/2008-C.E. [N.T.] and 4/2008-C.E. [N.T.], withdrew the excise tax exemption for those units in Himachal and Uttaranchal which undertake only peripheral activities such as cleaning operations, packing, re-packing, labeling or re-labeling, sorting and alteration of retail sale price.

The amendment is expected to pave way for better coordination between the excise and taxation department and the industries department in handling cases of excise exemption for units involved in peripheral activities. Sources in the industries department say even as the department refused to register such units, some of them managed to get the excise exemption under the special industrial package directly from the excise and taxation department.

Talking to The Indian Express, Director, Industries, Anil Khachi said a formal communication of the amendment has not reached the state so far. “But after seeing a report regarding this on the Central government’s information website, I have asked for a report on existence of units involved in peripheral activities only. As a matter of policy, to encourage manufacturing in the state, the department has not registered any large or medium-scale unit involved in peripheral activities, but we have to check the records for existence of any small-scale industries.” The impact of the new amendment on the registered cold storage units of Reliance, Adani and Devbhoomi is still to be assessed, said Khachi.

However, the state Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau, in one of its inquiries, had unearthed a few industrial units in Tahliwal industrial area in Una district, where neither manufacturing nor peripheral activity was taking place, but the units were claiming excise exemption. The excise exemption under the special industrial package of 2003 was given for encouraging manufacturing activities in Himachal.