As part of efforts to give a fillip to industrialisation, the government has decided to appoint ‘Escort Officers’ to interact with prospective entrepreneurs to attract investments.
The Escort Officer system was in vogue in 2002 when Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu was at the helm of affairs in the undivided State. The idea is to delegate full responsibility of facilitating establishment of new units and expansion of the existing ones to trained officers of the Industries Department who would be exclusively working on specific projects. However, the system previously did not give desired results largely because it lacked proper focus.
Thirteen years later, the A.P Government has realised the utility of escort officers in making the State investor-friendly.
Accordingly, close to 30 escort officers are proposed to be appointed in the first phase, but the system is yet to take off as the Industrial Investment and Promotion Policy (2015-20) itself is being fine-tuned after its release on April 2. “As of now, the idea is to appoint escort officers for large and medium industries which may be new units or those in expansion mode.
The system is modelled on the lines of Gujarat’s Industrial Extension Bureau and Karnataka Udyog Mitra which are playing the role of facilitators and the results are encouraging”, said District Industries Centre General Manager G. Rajendra Prasad.
He told The Hindu that A.P had shown to others how to facilitate industrial growth and expressed confidence that the escort officers would be helpful in improving the business ecosystem.
Welcome initiative
While welcoming the initiative, Confederation of Indian Industry Vijayawada Zone Vice-Chairman G. Venkateswara Rao stressed the need for the government to rein in troublesome officers before pressing escort officers into service.
“The government should ensure that escort officers play the role of a facilitator but not a regulator,” he pointed out.
Andhra Chamber of Commerce and Industry Federation executive director P. Bhaskar Rao said there was little awareness in industry circles about the escort officers system.
But once deployed, it will be an effective means to simplifying the cumbersome procedures, seen as impediments in smooth flow of investments by the industry.
