Patna: Industries minister Samir Mahaseth said that the state government departments and their agencies would start procuring about 25% of the products made by local industries, once the state government’s purchase policy is announced.
Speaking at the 78th annual general meeting of the Bihar Industries Association (BIA), Mahaseth said that the policy is almost ready and chief minister Nitish Kumar has in principle agreed to its provisions. “It may be announced later next month after fine tuning of a few provisions,” said the minister.
In his inaugural address, Mahaseth said that the government is aware of the problems being faced by the industries. “The government is fully committed to encourage entrepreneurs of the state. The Investors’ Meet, to be held here on Thursday, is an indication of the government’s resolve to expedite growth of industries in the state,” added the minister.
About 50 eminent entrepreneurs of the country have been invited at the investors’ meet, to be inaugurated by CM Nitish Kumar. He admitted that the budget of the industries department is less. It has also been informed by him that a proposal of ₹367 crore has been sent to the finance department as a supplementary budget to clear arrears of incentives to the entrepreneurs.
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He said that the industries of Bihar must take care of the quality, only then the government will get their products and for this, the monitoring work should be done regularly by BIA. He also said that some rules have been made with some strict provisions for the good of industries and transparency in businesses and not to harass the entrepreneurs unnecessarily.
Regarding the problem of Bihar industrial area development authority, tne minister said he would convene a meeting with representatives from different industrial areas across the state to discuss all the issues and resolve them. Pleased with the outreach program being run by the BIA, he suggested to take this program further and also assured that the department would be ready to extend its full cooperation in this.
The program was presided over by BIA president Arun Agarwal, who said that the economic-industrial development of the state needed the government’s intervention sort out the outstanding issues and to protect the interests of the entrepreneurs of the state.
Transparent and timely payment of incentives to entrepreneurs, availability of industrial plots on priority basis, early announcement of the state’s purchase policy, separate MVR for industrial plots, and total cooperation from the government to industries were some of the demands raised by the BIA during the programme.
The BIA announced awards to the outstanding industrialists and mentors for the year 2021-22.
Majhaulia Sugar Industries, Majhaulia, East Champaran got S. P. Jain Memorial Award, Tradewel India Sales Pvt. Ltd., Hajipur received S. R. Runga Memorial Award and Unique Foods (A unit of R K Agribiz LLP), Muzaffarpur, has been given away B. P. Gupta Memorial Award. DP Saboo Memorial Award was presented to Pramath Raj Sinha, Chairman, Governing Council – BIA VenturePark. The Lifetime Achievement ward went to Shailendra P Sinha, former president of the BIA and President’s Appreciation Award was given to Sunil Kumar Singh, former vice president, BIA.
