Patna, Feb. 18: Entrepreneurs, who were supposed to come out with valuable suggestions on how to build industrial capabilities, chose the summit as the platform to express their displeasure and anger at the government’s “lackadaisical” approach in dealing with them.

The entrepreneurs said the Bihar government has neither “strong political commitment” nor offers any “active support” in carrying out the process of industrialisation.

Amit Das, an Australia-based businessman who has his native house in Araria district, said: “There is no active support from the Bihar government to the entrepreneurs. They just move from pillar to post. After getting approval from the state investment promotion board, entrepreneurs had to work hard at every stage to get help from the government.”

Das said the situation is even worse in the districts where officials neither care about entrepreneurs nor for investment proposals as they “don’t have time for these things”.

“The district officials are more interested in the Indira Awas Yojana and MNREGA. They simply sit on applications for nine to ten months,” Das added.

Das was speaking at a workshop, Building Industrial Capabilities: Infrastructure, Finance, Skills and Entrepreneurships, on the second day of the global summit.

Altogether 11 workshops and six plenary sessions are scheduled to be held during the three-day summit that began yesterday.

Satyajit Kumar, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)’s eastern region vice-president, too expressed displeasure over the government’s approach in handling entrepreneurs in the state.

“The political leadership of the state must show commitment to take bold and decisive steps if it really wants to speed up the process of industrialisation. Only then would actual growth be possible. But so far the government has been able to send the message among the entrepreneurs that investment is something which could be termed ‘untouchable’. This mindset has to change,” Kumar said.

Bihar Industries Association president KPS Keshri, who made a slew of proposals and suggestions, said the government should provide subsidy for developing the industrial areas to be set up by private parties. This would reduce the burden on the state for land acquisition, which has become difficult in view of the greater dependence on land and higher productivity.

He also suggested that the government set up its own mining company which would bid for coal blocks across the country. This, he said, would help the state in its endeavour to be energy-sufficient as coal linkage has become the stumbling block in Bihar’s quest for a power plant.