Mumbai

Port developers have submitted a report to the State government claiming that the incentives promised to them three years ago to help augment coastal infrastructure still remain on paper.

Senior officials confirmed receipt of the report. “We have received a report from the port developers in regard to the policy announced on April 25, 2016. We are looking into it,” said a senior official of the Chief Secretary’s office

The port developers claim none of the sops promised as part of the Maharashtra Industrial Policy has been delivered, hurting economic viability of coastal projects. The incentives included exemptions in stamp duty, rebate in cess, concession on development, local taxes and wharfage charged from the date of operation. Though assured time and again, none of the concessions has been notified or implemented, the port developers said in the report.

“The incentives accorded in the Port Policy [part of the Industrial Policy] of 2010 and 2016 are still on paper. Sops assured during a meeting chaired by former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and current Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2017 are still to be implemented and see the light of the day,” said Sangeeta Jain, advisor to Maharashtra Port Developers Association, a body of green field ports.

The report, which was submitted to Chief Secretary D.K. Jain, states that concessions were promised three times: 2002, 2010, and 2016. Each time, one month’s deadline was set to implement the fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. The report states, “In future the government when giving concession in any policy should simultaneously issue the related government notification from the concerned departments to facilitate better implementation of the projects. All concessions need to be incorporated in the Detailed Project Report to ensure economic viability of the projects.”

The State in its Industrial Policy 2016 had offered incentives ranging from 20% to 100% of the capital investment for seven to 10 years. One of the major incentives was a 100% subsidy in the Value Added Tax and the Central Sales Tax. These investments were worth ₹11,37,783 crore, but only 8,664 projects (44.6%) with investments of ₹2,69,814 crore (23.7%) were commissioned, generating about 11.45 lakh jobs. The State has attracted 19,437 industrial proposals between August 1991 and November 2016.