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Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, January 17
The Industry Department today cancelled 19 industrial plots allotted in the Gol Thai industrial area in Bilaspur district to various investors for failing to undertake any industrial activity for the last several years.
The plots measuring 21,000 sq m were now priced at Rs 3 crore and the department also forfeited Rs 1.02 crore deposited as premium. These plots would be allotted on a fresh basis after completion of the laid norms.
General Manager, District Industries Centre, Bilaspur, GS Chauhan, said 36 plot owners had been served 15-days show cause notices by the department to explain their position. These 19 plot owners did not respond to the notice following which their plots were cancelled today. Out of the remaining 17 plots as many as 12 had defaulted on loans and they had been taken over by various banks and financial institutions while the remaining allotees had sought time of a few months to resume production activities.
Prior to this, eight plots were cancelled in 2017 by the officials in this area.
It was worth mentioning that officials in various industrial areas were gearing up to check misuse of industrial plots where activity other than industrial was being carried. Resuming plots, where no production activity is being carried out, is a Harculean task in the key industrial areas like Baddi where unavailability of large plots was scarce.
Since an investor setting up a unit on private land has to go through the rigours of obtaining permission under Section 118 of the HP Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972, investors opted for plots from the HPSIDC and Industries Department.
In Baddi, 65 plots were lying unused and the officials had initiated action to resume them. These plots varied from 1,000 to 10,000 sq m. Bigger size plots were much in demand in the state’s industrial hub of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh which accounted for 79 per cent of the state’s industry. As many as 27 plots were cancelled in this area in 2016.
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