Industries minister Renu Kumari (extreme right) addresses a meeting organised by the state industries department in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, May 17: Industrial growth in Bihar is no longer a distant dream as projects for 57 new food processing industries have already been approved with Rs 100 crore of financial assistance granted by state industries department in the 2010-11 fiscal.

Further, another 110 such projects are in the pipeline for sanction in the financial year 2011-12, informed officials from the industries department after a meeting with prospective investors at a city hotel today.

At least 10 leading investors, whose industrial projects would start functioning in the coming two to three months, participated in the meeting organised by the state industry department.

They were invited to discuss practical difficulties during the execution of their projects and the prospective support needed from the government.

“The change in Bihar in the past few years has been good. The law and order situation has improved a lot. The basic infrastructure for industries is also available and the overall environment is conducive for conducting business operations. Earlier, getting clearance from various government agencies was a bane, now investors are not bothered about such issues,” said Vinod Kumar, director of Lavanya Finvest Private Limited, which is a contract manufacturing unit of Parle biscuits. A biscuit production unit is being set up at Muzaffarpur at a cost of Rs 35.69 crore. A grant of Rs 5 crore has already been approved for the unit and the first instalment of Rs 50 lakh has already been released.

Industries minister Renu Kumari expressed satisfaction on the response from investors. “After discussing various issues pertaining to the setting up of industries, we have ascertained the hurdles in processing formalities and other practical field problems which would also be addressed in no time. It can now be said that industries are gaining confidence in the state,” said the minister.

Industry department principal secretary C.K. Mishra, however, assured investors the department would keep tabs on all sorts of laggards. “Today, we have discussed the prevailing problems with the investors, so that such problems could be prevented in the future. The industry department sought assistance and feedback from investors. On the basis of their response, we have decided that deadlines would be fixed for completion of work by various agencies,” said Mishra.

Earlier, the state industry department received 227 proposals from the food processing industries. According to the industrial promotion policy, 2006, the state government has executed two schemes — integrated development of food processing scheme and integrated food zone/ food park.

While under the first scheme, private investors will get either 35 per cent of the proposed cost or a maximum grant of Rs 5 crore, under the food park scheme, a grant of maximum of Rs 15 crore for setting up a cluster of food processing units at one place will be provided.