Hyderabad: Though approvals are given in 15 days on a fast track mode to industries in Telangana, incentives to them are hard to come by. Incentives to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore are being held up for the past few months due to lack of funds.
Sources in the industries department said that the government owes Rs 410 crore to entrepreneurs in the general category, Rs 94 crore to industrial units under the SCs category and Rs 124 crore under the ST category. Besides, the government owes Rs 610 crore under the T-PRIDE scheme, launched by the government to promote entrepreneurship among the Dalits.
However, there is a silver line at the end of the tunnel. The government has set aside Rs 410 crore as incentives in this year’s Budget and KT Rama Rao, industries minister, recently held a meeting with officials to speed up the delivery of incentives.
“Telangana inherited nearly Rs 2,000 crore arrears from undivided AP. We have cleared all those arrears in three years. Fresh arrears accumulated due to this. We are taking measures to clear them by March. The government has enacted the SC/ST Development Act for proper utilisation of sub plan funds. We will utilise the sub plan funds to clear the arrears of Dalit entrepreneurs,” Mr Rama Rao said.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which eye government incentives for their growth, are hit hard by this delay. The Telangana government unveiled its much acclaimed industrial approval policy, TS-iPASS, in June 2015. Under this, approvals to set up industries are sanctioned within 15 days through a single-window online system.
The government passed the Act in the state Assembly with stringent norms. If the green signal is not given within the mandatory time, the approval will be deemed to have been granted on 16th day.
