E-Paper
Jairam wins hearts of industrialists
THE CITY industrialists have welcomed the lofty promises of Union Commerce Minister Jairam Ramesh with open arms. But all of them are a bit wary when it comes to implementation given the complexities it may face in the near future.
THE CITY industrialists have welcomed the lofty promises of Union Commerce Minister Jairam Ramesh with open arms. But all of them are a bit wary when it comes to implementation given the complexities it may face in the near future.
The minsiter on Tuesday went several steps ahead with his bouquet of promises in the ailing industrial city. Touching the most sensitive chord, he vouched for a full-fledged airport with services of Indian going to be available from Novemeber this year. He sought a proposal to turn the leather park at Banthar in Unnao as the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) exclusively for the leather industry, promised container dispatch facility to Mumabi three times a week against once or twice a month at present and also gave instructions to the Central Customs and Excise to hold open house with the local exporters and sort out their problems on prirority basis.
Merchants Chambers of UP president Dr Ishwar Chandra Gupta said if the promises of the Commerce Minister became a reality, the face of city would be changed. He said there was no need for a new airport at Kanpur. Instead, the Amausi airport could be named Kanpur-Lucknow airport for that matter. “Airport at Kanpur is facing problems because of the IAF control. There are restrictions on timing of flights, night landing etc. On the other hand the four lane highway has reduced the period of journey to Amausi considerably,” he said.
As for the SEZ for leather, the entire issue is sandwiched among some leather bigshots and timely implementation of it is most unlikely. Another top leather industrialist RK Suri, too, is a bit upset with the airport hype. “Why all this fuss, Amausi is just at 45 minutes drive from city,” he said. Instead, he demanded more flights to Mumbai.
RK Jalan said all the promises were potent enough to give a much needed fillip to the export-based industry.
