Lack of powers renders state trade boards toothless

The small,medium and large industries development trade boards were formed on April 15,2008 and in the last 27 months,only four meetings have been held against the norm of one meeting every quarter.

The boards are proving to be paper tigers and even members have stopped attending meetings,whenever it is called,as most of their decisions have not been implemented by any of the departments.

Industrialists complain that at times,some departments don’t even reply to their recommendations. S C Ralhan,member of the medium scale board,admitted that the boards have not lived up to the expectations of the industrialists.

Ralhan,who is also the regional chairman of the Engineering Export and Promotion Council,said,“The chairman of the board is not even empowered to call any officer to the meeting. In the capacity of regional chairman,I could not persuade the government to address problems being faced by the industry so I have stopped attending the meetings.”

Interestingly,the state has given the chairman of these boards the rank of a cabinet minister while the vice-chairman is equivalent to a state minister. They are provided additional facilities like an official vehicle with red beacon,fuel expenses,security and mobile phone charges,apart from a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 (chairman) and Rs 10,000 (vice-chairman).

The directors of these boards are given ranks equivalent to that of a PCS officer.

Sunil Mehra,director of the large scale board,said,“I am unhappy with the performance of the board because we have not been able to accomplish our desired purpose for which these bodies were formed. We do not have any powers to get decisions implemented.”

In a letter to Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal,Abohar MLA Sunil Jakhar has asked him to review the working of these boards,“which have done nothing for the upliftment of the industry so far”.

According to Jakhar,the medium industry development board had given suggestions to upgrade the standards of NIFT,Mohali,but no reply was received.

Further,the board also asked the Excise department to inform from when the goods and services tax (GST) was likely to be implemented and this again went unheard.

Satish Dhanda,vice-chairman of the medium scale development board,however,said: “Our board has got more than 15 decisions implemented. These pertain to medium scale industries like induction furnaces,rolling mills and power purchase. We are not here to solve individual problems of industrialists and are performing up to the mark.”