Calcutta, Aug. 26: Industries minister Partha Chatterjee today told the Assembly that the state government had sanctioned Rs 16.28 crore to revive closed and sick units.

“In all, 19 sick and 16 closed units have received the funds. Till July 31, we have managed to revive five of them,” Chatterjee said.

The minister’s comments came in response to a question by Congress MLA Krishnendu Choudhury on how much money the government had allocated to revive sick units.

Chatterjee said the Board For Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) had prepared a list of 90 closed factories. Of these, 72 are private sector units and the remaining 18 are government undertakings.

The CPM’s Surjya Kanta Mishra pointed out a “contradiction” in the figures of such units provided by finance minister Amit Mitra and Chatterjee. “In his budget speech, the finance minister had said there were 55,000 sick and closed units. You are saying something else. What is the exact figure?” he asked Chatterjee.

The industries minister said the BIFR list was “official”. He said potential investors had been given copies of the list so that they could revive some of the units.

Mishra said a left delegation had submitted to Manmohan Singh a proposal to revive sick units when the Prime Minister visited Calcutta earlier this week. When the CPM leader offered to place the proposal in the House too, Chatterjee said: “If the proposal was given to the Prime Minister, I am sure he will take it up with the chief minister.”

In response to a question from Chowdhury on whether a single-window clearance was possible in setting up industries, the minister said: “Earlier, the application form for prospective investors had 99 pages. It was initially brought down to 35 pages and finally to 15. We are now trying to put this form online.”

Chatterjee said efforts were being made to revive and boost the tourism, IT, food processing and floriculture industries in north Bengal. “The previous government had just invited proposals to set up units in these sectors and left it at that,” he said.

Dunlop wage push

Labour minister Purnendu Bose today asked the Dunlop authorities to pay July’s wages to the workers within a week. Bose said the government would take “stern action” if Dunlop did not start production again.

The minister also asked all companies to pay Puja bonus to workers at a rate not less than last year’s.