Summing up

The industrial policies in Gujarat have aimed to strengthen the manufacturing sector. The earlier policies in Gujarat were aimed at attracting an ever-increasing flow of investments to its backward regions to reduce regional disparities and achieve the objective of balanced regional development. The state tried to induce development in the backward areas by offering fiscal incentives. However, fiscal incentives have not been available since 2000 as most of the states have decided against such incentives. It was realised that fiscal incentive alone cannot influence the location decisions and there are many other factors which are likely to play an equally important role in decisions about industrial location. Therefore, the focus of the later policies shifted to the overall industrial development in the state by providing and promoting the enabling infrastructure.

The spectrum of investments in the successive policies has increased from individual industries from ‘pioneer units’ to ‘prestigious units’ and ‘premier’ to ‘mega and ultra-mega’ projects. The spectrum of industrial areas has increased from the GIDC estates to clusters to SEZs and SIRs. Small and medium industries

TABLE 3.2 Comparative analysis of industrial policies in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu

s. No.	Parameter	Industrial policies Gujarat		Industrial policies Maharashtra		Industrial policies Tamil Nadu
s. No.	Parameter	2003	2009	2006	2013	2007	2014
1	Balanced regional development	X		a/	a/	X	yl
2	Capital subsidy	X*	X	n'	n'	a/	>1
3	Interest subsidy for SSI	a/	a\|	a/	a/	X	X
4	Infrastructure provision and upgradation	a/		a/	a/	a/	yl
5	Provision of land for industries**	a/	yl	X	a/	yl
6	Cluster approach for development	a/	yl	yl	a/		■j'k'k'k
7	Easing out procedural bottlenecks	a/			a/
8	Strengthening of institutional support	a/			a/		yl
9	Human resource development	yl			yl	yl
10	Strengthening of SMEs	yl			yl	yl	yl
11	Revival of sick units	yl			yl	yl	X
12	Special fiscal incentives for Mega projects	X	Al	yl	yl	yl	yl
13	Special investment regions	X	a\|	X	X	X	a\|
14	Measures for environment protection**	yl		X	a/	yl	yl

Source: GOG, 2003; GOG, 2009; GOM,²’ 2006; GOM, 2013; GOT,³⁰ 2007; GOT, 2014.

Note: *Capital subsidy is only provided for power looms. **Gujarat has been more proactive for these measures. ***Sector-specific industrial parks have been promoted.

have been promoted in all the policies. There has been a change in the attitude towards SSIs—from being protective towards them to enabling them to be globally competitive. There has been a progressive increase in the initiatives proposed for strengthening the MSMEs in successive policies and to make them more competitive and environment friendly. To make land available for industries, each policy since 2000 has proposed special initiatives.

Sustainable development, pollution control, meeting the standards, creation of environmental infrastructure for the protection of environment, automated monitoring of environmental quality, etc. have been the focus of all industrial policies since 1995. The 1995—00 policy provided financial assistance for the establishment of common environmental facilities for the treatment of water pollution in the form of the CETPs, laying conveyance pipelines for the discharge of the treated effluents and the setting up of hazardous waste facilities. These initiatives have continued in the later policies.

The 2009 policy gave ‘infrastructure’ status to environmental facilities and promoted ‘green business.’ The list of common environmental infrastructure projects receiving financial assistance was extended to include a number of projects dealing with waste treatment/recycling/reuse/recovery, incineration, coincineration, spent acid separation, solvent recovery, etc. Assistance was provided for adopting ‘green practices’ like cleaner production, clean technology, water and energy audits in the MSMEs. Reducing carbon footprint and gaining carbon credits were included in the list of projects receiving financial assistance. The 2009 policy proposed the PPP model for environmental infrastructure and the setting up of these facilities by third-party professional agencies. The policies also discussed the strengthening of the regulatory agency and improving monitoring so as to improve environmental compliance.

It can be concluded that successive industrial policies in Gujarat have focused on creating an enabling environment for the manufacturing sector. The state has played the role of a facilitator and has taken policy initiatives to provide an enabling infrastructure for promoting industrial development in the state.