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Himachal aims to develop Rs 350 crore medical equipment park using own resources, seeks central funding

Posted on by darion

The Union government would not have a stake in the Rs 350-crore medical equipment park to be set up at Nalagarh in Solan district as the state government has decided to build the park from its own resources and return the Rs 30 crore it received from the Centre, a release said. The decision was taken in the interest of the state.

The project would be developed on over 265 acres of land and in case of non-repayment of Rs 300 crore received from the Centre, the land would be handed over to industrialists at the rate of Rs 1 per square metre, electricity at Rs 3 per unit and water, maintenance and storage facilities would be provided free of cost for a period of ten years, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said.

The state government has so far released an amount of Rs 74.95 crore for the project, said a statement issued on Saturday.

The government, looking after the state’s interests and avoiding ties, has decided to build the park on its own as the project, once commissioned, will generate benefits of Rs 500 million from sale of land and other resources in the next five to seven years, he added.

The state government will take a loan from SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India) under the cluster development programme for setting up the medical devices park and after restructuring the project, 25 per cent of the land will be earmarked exclusively for the medical devices industry and 75 per cent for other strategic industries, he said.

He added that the industrial park will be developed as a modern industrial hub that will become a steady source of income for the state government in the coming years and also contribute to economic development and better infrastructure.

Earlier, the state government had decided not to accept assistance from any private agency for the pharmaceutical wholesale park being built at Haroli in Una district. The government will allocate Rs 10 billion from its own resources, the statement added.