GANDHINAGAR, July 15: The state government today announced a series of special concessions to restore and rehabilitate about 1,500 industrial units affected by the cyclonic storm that hit the coastal Kutch and Saurashtra last month.Replying to the debate on budgetary demands of his department in the Assembly, Industries Minister Suresh Mehta said the government would pay six per cent of the total interest, under the interest assistance scheme, if the owners of these units agree to pay the bank loans for restoration of their industries.Since these units would require working capital and term loans to revive their units, different nationalised banks have agreed to advance loans of about 60 crore rupees to them. Mehta said the government would extend its scheme to owners of the cyclone-hit industrial units up to three years, which will entail an additional burden of 10.80 crore rupees on the exchequer. Besides, the recovery of dues on the loans taken from the State Industrial Investment Corporation andState Financial Corporation will be deferred for three to six months.The minister announced that the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) would postpone for one year the recovery of dues from the affected industrial units. The GIDC will also not initiate till one year any action against defaulters under the Gujarat Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act.Mehta also announced that of the total two lakh small sick industrial units in the state, as many as 7,000 would be revived under the government's proposed Gujarat Board for Industrial and Financial Re-construction (GBIFR)."We will request the nationalised banks to advance credits to the sick units", he said.Under the rehabilitation package, various concessions will be provided to these units, which include deferred payment for two years on the sales tax, purchase tax, deferred payment for two to five years on the electricity duty, interest relief in power bills and exemption from minimum charge and security depositand relief in the subsidy recovery.The Industries minister also said that the central government had assured Gujarat that the former would release at the earliest about Rs 111 crore from National Renewal Fund (NRF) for payment of dues to workers of the closed textile units. "The state government is prepared to contribute the matching amount (Rs 111 crore), as soon as the releases its share from the NRF," he said.Mehta said the government would clear the industrial subsidy backlog of 116 crore rupees by the end of the current financial year, for which a provision of 99.75 crore rupees had been made in the 1998-99 budget.
