Section 144: Limits in mind, bizmen make their point

Ludhiana: City industrialists on Monday staged a protest against the state government over the deadline given to them under Masterplan 2023 outside the office of general manager of District Industries Centre (DIC).
However, since the police had imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in Ludhiana, only four industrialists were present in this protest on Monday.
Under the masterplan, the industrialists were asked to shift their factories out of mix land use (MLU) areas before September 2023. After failing to get the decision changed, the industrialists had decided to protest against the Aam Aadmi Party-led state government. However in the backdrop of Section 144 being imposed in the city, they have now decided to hold representative agitations till Wednesday in which four persons would sit on the dharna everyday.
Jaswinder Singh Thukral, president of Janta Nagar Small Scale Manufacturers Association, who led the protest on Monday, said, “It is shocking that there are only five months left until the deadline, and the state government is not deferring the deadline. Despite industrialists sending dozens of memorandums to the government, meeting senior officials and AAP leaders, no corrective action has been taken till now due to which we had to stage this protest.”
They also threatened to protest outside the residence of chief minister Bhagwant Mann if the issue isn’t resolved.
Thukral added, “Today was the first day of our protest and we are going to continue the same till Wednesday and every day our four member delegation will sit on dharna for one hour. In case the government fails to address this issue and extend the deadline, we will sharpen our agitation and take the protest to the CM’s residence.”
Businessmen urged the government to extend the deadline by a few years, if it can’t amend the rules.
Another industrialist present in the protest, Harpal Singh Bhambar said, “If the state government wants to resolve this issue, the simplest solution is to declare all the MLU areas as industrial areas. If this is not acceptable to the government, then the Masterplan’s deadline should at least be extended by five years.”
Rajinder Singh Kalsi, another industrialist said, “Entire industrial chain of Ludhiana revolves around factories in MLU areas. If these units are shut down, the medium and large scale units too will not be able to operate because they are dependant on MLU area factories for various important industrial processes and components. So government should act fast and take a decision to save the industry and economy of Ludhiana.”