14K industries shut amid Covid in Punjab

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 9

With 14,249 units being shut, Covid proved to be disastrous for industrial sector in the state and the government has failed to revive these industries or push the growth of the ailing sector.

Badish Jindal, president, All India Trade Forum, said the fact that so many industries had closed was supported by the annual revenue report of the PSPCL. “As many as 10,617 small power, 3,210 medium power and 422 large power units have closed down in the state. But the government never turned up to give any sort of relief to the industries,” he said.

Following this, the load of industries also decreased during the same period. The load of small power connections decreased from 10,99,243 KVA to 10,55,227 KVA, of medium scale industries from 20,29,163 KVA to 16,08,963 KVA and of large scale industries from 67,52,580 KVA to 58,74,316 KVA.

Jindal said Punjab reported mere 4 per cent growth in industries from 2012 to 2021 with just 1,243 new small industries being set up and 150 large. “In the past nine years, the population grew around 27.57 lakh, the number of domestic connections went up by 14,77,113, agriculture connections 2,31,975, shops connection 1,92,437, but the industrial connections increased merely by 4,002,” he said.

Jindal said: “The VAT collection in 2010-11 in Punjab was Rs 12,200 crore against Haryana’s Rs 11,082 crore. However, this year the average annual GST collection of Haryana crossed Rs 60,000 crore and Punjab is still below Rs 16,000 crore. The GST collection in September 2021 in Punjab is Rs 1,402 crore against Haryana’s Rs 5,577 crore.”

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