As Maharashtra is set to unveil a new industrial policy in coming days, the Federation of Industries Association, Vidarbha (FIAV) on Monday urged the Government to make provisions to boost industrial growth in Vidarbha. The federation, representing 29 industry bodies of the region, said that the government should pay special attention toward the power sector. Addressing the press conference held, newly elected President of FIAV Paresh Raja said that the Government should provide power to industrial units of the region at subsidised rates. “The current rates of power in the state are too high which is posing a big threat to the existing industrial units.

 

Many units have been already shifted to other states while many others are struggling to survive,” he pointed out. Further, the Government should encourage industrialists to use solar energy, he said. Kailash Khandelwal, Secretary of the federation, said “Two years ago, entrepreneurs used to receive subsidy if they paid their bills before the due date. Now, the subsidy is only granted if the entrepreneur pays before the prompt payment date. Many times, entrepreneurs receive their electricity bills after the prompt payment date, and as a result, they miss out on the subsidy. Thus our demand is that the electricity subsidy for Vidarbha and Marathwada should be granted if the bill is paid before the due date,” he said. The federation also raised other related issues and urged the Government to incorporate it in the upcoming policy. Pradeep Khandelwal, Madhusudan Rungta, Kiran Paturkar, Chander Khosla, Avin Agrawal, P Mohan, Kishore Malviya, Rehman Patel, Prasanna Deshpande, Laxmikant Daga, Nitin Lonkar, Dilip Agrawal, Darshan Johrapurkar, Shankarlal Batra and others were present.