Police flooded with request from industry owners for weekly entry passes in Himachal

Tribune News Service
Solan, May 4

With the district magistrate (DM) permitting the industry owners and promoters to visit their industries once a week to oversee industrial operations, the Baddi police was flooded with requests.

The provision has been specially created to facilitate the industrialists residing in Pinjore, Panchkula and Kalka to visit their industries in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt.

Since the area houses maximum pharmaceutical industries which supply medicines to the entire country, it will further aid smooth functioning of such industries informed DM KC Chaman.

In order to streamline their movement, the DM has chalked out a schedule for their entry into the BBN area.

Industry owners whose unit name begins from alphabet A to D would be permitted to visit BBN on Mondays while those from E to H would do so on Tuesdays and from I to L would be allowed on Wednesdays.

Likewise owners having industry names from M to P would visit BBN on Thursday and from Q to U on Fridays while the remaining ones from V to Z would be permitted to visit on Saturdays.

The Baddi police will have to maintain a weekly movement register at the inter-state barrier where details of arrival and departure of industrialists would be recorded.

They have also been directed to download the Aarogya Setu App and update their information on a daily basis and move strictly as per the route plan approved by the SP Baddi failing which relevant legal action would be taken against them.

SP Baddi, Rohit Malpani, said 35 industrialists were permitted to enter the BBN area today and added that requests were received from many more.

Welcoming the move, Sanjay Sharma, a pharmaceutical unit owner, said this facility will help them optimise their manufacturing operations which were suffering due to lack of supervision.

Notably, as many as 257 pharmaceutical units were operational in the BBN area with 30 to 70 per cent manufacturing capacities as against 214 operational on April 5.

Large scale pharmaceutical units like Abbot India, Alkem Laboratories, Cadila Healthcare, two units of Dr Reddy’s Lab as well as those of Cipla and others like Fresenius Kabi Oncology Limited, Hetero Laboratories,  Macleods Pharma, Torrent Pharma  were among the major manufacturers who had ramped up their capacities up to 70 per cent.

They were in the process of bringing back their employees for further enhancing their capacities informed State Drugs Controller Navneet Marwaha.