Govt should not put riders on one-time settlement: Industry

Even as industrialists have welcoming the state government’s announcement on One-Time Settlement (OTS) policy for plot holders in Focal Points, they are wary of unnecessary riders while settling the pending cases.

The industrialists, including Charanjit Vishkarma from UCPMA, Gurmit Singh Kular from FICO and Pankaj Sharma from ATIU gathered today to discuss the issue.

ATIU president Pankaj Sharma thanked MP Sanjiv Arora on getting OTS for industry. The executive members of ATIU, who hailed the government announcement of charging an 8% simple rate on the outstanding payment from Focal Point industry owners, maintained that it is indeed a bold step.

“It will be a great relief for the industry as many expansion projects were held up. It would be even better if the government amends the policy regarding the cancellation of plots, which is totally uncalled for and has been made without considering ground reality. The units, which are in commercial production for more than 20 years, have been served orders for non-production by the PSIEC. The PSIEC has issued an order through which it has fixed very high circle rate and has started charging 50 per cent of the transfer fee from the seller. ATIU has been pressing the government to withdraw this rule at the earliest,” said Sharma.

He added that due to the rule not only the transactions of Focal Point property have come down drastically, but business activities have also been affected as the banks have stopped giving advance to the units.

Sunil Sachdeva, vice-president of the association, said the ATIU was thankful to the Punjab government for announcing the OTS. He said they hoped that it will not come with riders when implemented. He requested the government to take more such positive measures for the industry.

The process of calculating and depositing outstanding amount should be simple and transparent so that one can deposit the amount online. The process should be as simple as calculating and depositing property tax so that the allottees are not required to visit PSIEC offices. The PSIEC should also announce a similar policy for commercial booths and sites, especially for those allottees who have paid the full amount but have not been able to start construction of booths due to the lack of awareness.

“It is also worth mentioning that the PSIEC did not issue a single notice in the last 20 years to such allottees, but refused to issue NOC for registration of plots when allottees approached them,” said Sharma.