Medical device park faces revival as Cabinet sub-panel told to submit report within two months

The hopes of the revival of the medical device park project proposed at Nalagarh have rekindled after a Cabinet sub-committee was entrusted the task to submit a report on its development within two months.

The work on the park project, spread over 1,623 bighas at Gheed and Teliwal villages of Manjholi gram panchayat in Nalagarh subdivision, was halted in November last year due to the paucity of funds. Even a contractor, who had flattened the hill, had failed to get his dues worth crores of rupees.

To lure investors, the state government was supposed to provide land to industrialists for Re 1 per square metre, electricity at Rs 3 per unit and water, maintenance and warehouse facilities for 10 years without any charges.

The government, however, was not in favour of these lucrative sops as it believed that most of the equipment manufactured in the park would be sold outside the state, thus causing a direct loss of State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) to the state exchequer. To overcome this binding, a decision was taken to build the medical device park from the state’s own resources.

Initially, its project cost was pegged at Rs 349.83 crore, with the Central Government providing Rs 100 crore for the development of common scientific facilities and the state government contributing the remaining funds. The project was, however, restructured in 2024.

Under the new plan, only 25 per cent of the land would be allocated exclusively to medical device industries. The state government had returned Rs 30 crore granted by the Central Government earlier this year while it had failed to spare its own funds for it. Himachal Pradesh was among four states which were granted this park by the Centre in 2022 to reduce the import of medical devices.

The state government is yet to complete the construction work and allot plots to the prospective investors almost three years after the project was kick-started. Key works like the setting up of laboratories, factories, etc, are yet to even begin as just plots have been carved out and some infrastructure work was undertaken before work was halted.

The BJP is raising concerns over this key central project aimed at curtailing imports. State BJP spokesperson Vivek Sharma said, “After spending Rs 150 crore on levelling a hill, the Industries Department was asking for another Rs 350 crore for creating infrastructure for the park while it was targeting an investment of Rs 500 crore.” He questioned how the state government had spent a whopping Rs 1,300 per sq m on flattening the plot while it had refused to provide subsidies to the investors.