Cigarette units will come up in public sector if proposals recently cleared by the Industrial Development Ministry go through [New Delhi, June 13]. As many as five State industrial development corporations have been issued letters of intent to open cigarette factories and these are to be located in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and Haryana. Besides these an application from Madhya Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation is under consideration. Barring Assam, the other States have proposed units with an annual production capacity of 4,500 million pieces each. Assam has proposed a unit with 3,000 million pieces capacity. Within a span of six months, letters of intent have been issued for eleven new units and for the expansion of one of the existing units of National Tobacco Company. Of the eleven new units, five are in the State sector and six in the private sector.
