AURANGABAD, Nov 11: The State Government will provide entrepreneurs with ready to use industrial sheds, endeavour to procure for them a loan from the Maharashtra State Finance Corporation (MSFC) and add a host of infrastructural facilities at the Waluj and Chikalthana industrial areas, the Minister for Industries, Leeladhar Dhake, declared here on Monday evening.

The industrial sheds will be made available on a no-profit-no-lose prize basis the Minister added. Dhake also announced that the regional managers of MSFC will now be empowered to disburse loans up to Rs 30 lakh as against RS 15 lakh at present to save the entrepreneurs the trouble of going all the way to Mumbai.

The Industries Minister was optimistic that the the Czech car major Skoda would set up its plant at Aurangabad. In the same breadth, he however, added that in the liberalised atmosphere, the government could no more insists a foreign investor to set up plant at a particular place.

Deputy Industries Minister, Prabhakar More, Industries Secretary Yaswant Bhave, Development Commissioner, Jayant Karvale, and the regional chiefs of various industry related departments attended the day-long Shiv Shahi Aplaya Dari programme.

However, though the small scale industrialists were very vocal with their complaints and suggestions, not much yielded from the discussions, participants opined.

The Maharashtra State Electricity Board maintained a tough stand on terms of permanent disconnections, security deposits and frequent power-offs.

Entrepreneurs even offered to bear the expenses of providing pagers to the fuse call centre employees, who, they alleged, were seldom traceable; but the MSEB Chief Engineer Bhide, remained non-committal.

The Labour Commissioner too, in a bold and forceful statement, rejected the industrialists suggestion that no union should be allowed to be formed in units employing less than 20 employees.

Industrialists lamented that of late, there had been no large scale investments in the region leading to stagnation. Suggestions on attracting some plant of the railways, defence or telecommunication to the region too did not register much on the officials or ministers, industrialists lamented.

Marwari faux pas

More than once, the Minister lost his cool when small scale industrialist pointed out the lacunae in various departments related with industries. The State Government is not a firm run by marwaries he shot on one occasion, completely forgetting that a large number of the participants belonged to that community. A tense silence was palpable in the hall after this statement. It took well over half an hour for a senior official to pass on a chit to the Minister pointing out his faux pas. Dhake immediately regretted his words but the audience remained unimpressed.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.