Pradyut Bordoloi

Guwahati, Nov. 18: The northeastern states are headed for a “common industrial growth roadmap” with Union minister for commerce and industry Anand Sharma convening a meeting of industry and commerce ministers of the region to devise a strategy in this regard.

The meeting will be either held here or in Shillong next month.

The decision to treat all the northeastern states as a cluster for facilitating industrial growth in the region was taken after industry and commerce ministers from all over the country made their presentations at a conclave in New Delhi yesterday. The presentations were made to discuss the policy paper on a new national industrial policy.

Assam industry and commerce minister Pradyut Bordoloi told this correspondent from New Delhi this afternoon that Sharma had promised to hold “very focussed and detailed” separate discussions on industrialisation.

Industry ministers from the region and representatives from the Union ministries of external affairs, home and finance will take part in the meeting in December.

Northeast shares 98 per cent of its boundary with several countries, including China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan.

“Trade and commerce can be facilitated by taking advantage of our geographical location in pursuance of the Look East Policy,” Bordoloi said.

In his presentation, the state industry minister sought the setting up of dedicated branches of lead banks and financial institutions to exclusively deal with industry in the state in particular and the region in general.

Bordoloi said he had requested Sharma to start with by setting up four such branches exclusively for micro, small, medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Jorhat, Tezpur, Guwahati and Silchar in Assam, besides regularising the lending norms of banks and financial institutions to the MSME sector in the region.

“These two steps would go a long way in boosting industrialisation in our region. If we have dedicated branches it would make things easy for existing and prospective entrepreneurs and investors to do business since these will be industry-oriented instead of being wholly commercial. Moreover, I have also pointed out that commercial banks mobilise a lot of deposits from the region but are far behind when it comes to lending to MSMEs,” he said.

Bordoloi also requested the Centre to make the state waterways navigable for swift movement of cargo by making provisions for jetties and other facilities from Sadiya to Dhubri.

The minister also pressed for creation of a special technology upgrade fund for development and maintenance of plant and machinery and process system of sick MSMEs.

He also requested special central assistance for setting up an industrial corridor from the Dibrugarh gas cracker plant to Jorhat and Tinsukia, a tea park on the outskirts of Guwahati and a plastic park in Tinsukia.

Proposed projects, including the National Institute of Design (Jorhat), a bamboo park (Jagiroad), mega food park (Boko and Tihu) and jute processing park (Darrang and Nalbari) also figured in Bordoloi’s presentation.