The Government is keen on the rehabilitation of the Anglo French Textiles (AFT) mill and two other textile mills in Puducherry through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy has said.
He told presspersons that a committee headed by a retired IAS officer and those in the textile industry had been constituted to go into the proposal. Once a report was available, the government would take steps to rehabilitate the AFT, Swadeshi, and Bharathi mills.
The century old AFT mill had remained closed since 2015 following mounting losses, rapid erosion of net worth of the company, and prevailing labour unrest because of non-payment of statutory dues to employees. The company had been facing financial crisis, short of cash even to meet on its day-to-day operations.
The Chief Minister said the new industrial policy of the government had started attracting entrepreneurs to the Union Territory. Twenty two enterprises from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry had shown interest in setting up industries in Puducherry and Karaikal regions with a total investment of ₹500 crore. These industries would generate 1,000 jobs.
The government-owned Pondicherry Industrial Promotion Development and Investment Corporation (PIPDIC) was providing land at low rent and industrial sheds to entrepreneurs to start their units. The industrial zone in Polagam in Karaikal would be used for promoting industries in the private sector.
Monsoon failure
Mr. Narayanasamy said that Puducherry and Karaikal regions had been severely hit by monsoon failure causing heavy crop loss. He said that he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to depute a team to assess the impact of drought in Puducherry and Karaikal and release sufficient funds for giving relief to farmers.
A resolution in this regard had been adopted on the floor of the Legislative Assembly. “I will meet Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh during my visit to Delhi next week and persuade him to depute a team and release funds to tackle the drought situation,” he added.
NEET issue
The Government had urged the Centre to exempt the Union Territory from conducting the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for the next five years. He said that NEET had been adopting CBSE-based syllabus. But Puducherry was still in its formative stages. There were not many CBSE schools in the Union Territory and steps were being taken to bring more schools under the ambit of CBSE syllabus, he added.
