“We are building an SEZ in Shreepur-Haraiya area of Kailali district and an industrial estate in Daiji Village Development Committee (VDC) of Kanchanpur,” said Minister for Industry Anil Kumar Jha. [break]
The government is also to construct an inland container depot (ICD), commonly termed dry port, in the Dodhara-Chandani area, he added.
Jha said that the Ministry of Industry (MoI) was soon deputing teams including technical experts to carry out feasibility study for the development of the proposed industrial and trade facilitation infrastructures. The MoI will take further measures for land acquisition and construction of infrastructures on the basis on the report of the study teams.
Jha, who is on a visit of the far west region, told the press that the government was committed to developing industry and facilitating trade growth in the poorest region of the country. During the visit, Jha interacted with senior government officials and took stock of industrial units operating in the region.
The announcement by the government to set up an SEZ in the far west region is nothing new however. The government had first made such an announcement three years ago and it allocated Rs 200 million in 2008/09 and Rs 100 million in 2009/10 for the purpose.
The MoI had also carried out a pre-feasibility study to identify areas where an SEZ could be built. This had raised optimism among entrepreneurs in the region. But all these initial efforts failed after the SEZ project failed to acquire land for the purpose.
When the government maintained a silence on SEZ construction in its budget for 2010/11, locals lost hope.
According to officials, past efforts failed mainly because the Ministry of Forests cold-shouldered MoI´s request for forest-covered land in the Daiji area of Kanchanpur for the development of the industrial estate.
Minister Jha, however, vowed to address such lack of coordination between different ministries. He even called the lack of industrial development in the far west unfortunate, particularly as adjacent regions on the other side of the Indian border have numerous big power and industrial ventures.
Apart from the promotion of industry, Jha also stressed the development of power in the region, noting that multi-faceted development was quite crucial for improving the economic outlook and transforming the lives of people in the region.
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