The Hindu            30.07.2012

Proposed industrial township authorities welcomed

Manufacturing hub:There are over 2,000 industrial units, small, medium and large in Mysore.— PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

The proposed constitution of industrial township
authorities at the local level for administering industrial areas has
been welcomed by the stakeholders here.

The
constitution of the local industrial authorities or township authorities
was hinted at by M.N. Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary, Industries and
Commerce and Chairman, Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board
(KIADB), here on Saturday

The move, once implemented,
is expected to give a boost to the development of industrial areas in
Mysore, some of which lack basic amenities despite housing a large
cluster of industries.

Suresh Kumar Jain, general secretary, Mysore Industries Association (MIA), told
The Hindu
that none of the industrial areas in Mysore, including Hootagalli,
Metagalli, Belawadi, have been provided with basic amenities or civic
services.

Despite the fact that the industrial
layouts employ thousands of people who work here round the clock, , the
authorities have not provided treated water to the factories. “Raw water
can be used only for industrial usage and is unfit for human
consumption. Our repeated demands for supplying drinking water have been
ignored over the years,” said Mr. Jain.

The MCC
council in December 2011 had rejected a request from BEML — which is one
of the major companies in Mysore – seeking supply of 3 lakh litres of
water per day on the grounds that it could affect the supply to the city
and wanted the proposal to be withheld till the Kabini water works was
commissioned. Likewise, in 2006, a group of entrepreneurs in the
Nanjangud industrial area had pooled resources for maintenance of civic
amenities including asphalting the approach road, planting trees and
maintenance of street lights as they were tired with the indifference of
the civic authorities and the KIADB. Meanwhile, the industries in
Mysore have received notices from the MCC to pay property tax at
commercial rates. Expressing surprise over the development, Mr. Jain
said most industries in and around Metagalli have received the notices
though they were part of the local gram panchayats and the MCC did not
have jurisdiction over them. Resisting the move, entrepreneurs
questioned the rationale for demanding tax from the industries when the
money is used for providing amenities elsewhere. “The industrial area
being non-residential, money is spent on residential areas of the city.
While we had no objections to the local authorities collecting taxes and
spend it anywhere in the city, they ignore genuine demands of the
industrial areas,” said Mr. Jain. There are more than 2,000 industrial
units – small, medium and large – and taxes are paid to the KIADB
towards maintenance, trade licence and renewal fee to the MCC, mandatory
clearance from various departments including the pollution control
board but without amenities in return. “However, once the local
industrial township authority comes into being, taxes will be payable to
it and the industrial township authority will be responsible for
providing all civic amenities to the area under its jurisdiction,” said
Mr. Jain. This includes regulating the location of factories based on
whether they are electrical, manufacturing, chemical and food processing
apart from providing civic amenities.

• No industrial area in Mysore has been provided basic amenities
• Factories in the city are not even supplied drinking water