An interview with A Santhi Kumari, Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is heading the Chasing Cell set up to give permissions to industries.

How has the TS-iPASS policy brought about a change?

The policy has brought about a massive shift in the pre-scrutiny stage. Under the pre-scrutiny process, the concerned departments review the applications and inform the applicant whether it is complete in all respects or needs more information. Once this process is completed, officials cannot raise further questions. More importantly, the policy recognises the right to clearance. When industrialists apply for setting up units, the concerned departments are mandated to accord permission. We have cleared a total of 52 projects so far and the stage is set for clearing another 16 proposals.

How does this translate into financial gain?

The 52 proposals cleared so far are worth Rs 3,500 crore and once we clear 70 projects, the value would be Rs 4,700 crore.

How does the Chasing Cell work?

Our team of six officials holds daily meetings to resolve problems and clear the bottlenecks in the process of clearing applications related to setting up of industries. This has helped clear some very big proposals in recent times, such as an ITC project worth Rs 4,000 crore and a proposal of Orient Cement worth Rs 1,000 crore.

Could you outline some salient features of the policy?

It is a part of the widely acclaimed state industrial policy and some of its features include:

* Attractive incentive packages
* Special incentives for SC/ST and women entrepreneurs
* Creation of industrial land banks
* Up to 10 per cent water from all irrigation sources reserved exclusively for industries
* Linking mini-industrial townships with industrial parks to promote industrialisation in the state
* Reservation of plots in industrial parks for MSMEs
* Corpus fund to prevent incipient sickness among SMEs
* Vendor development programme to provide marketing support for MSMEs
* Creation of separate power grid and discom for industries
* Identification of 15 thrust sectors that will have their own sectoral policies and incentive structures.