COIMBATORE: Days after Express detailed the community effort of MSME entrepreneurs to painstakingly build an industrial estate from scratch over the course of three decades near the city, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and District Industries Centre officials on Friday visited the spot and assured fund infusion through loans to give a much-needed leg-up to infrastructure development.
Spread over 300 acres of land bought combinedly by 584 industrialists near Karumathampattti-Annur Road, the upcoming hub christened Arignar Anna Industrial Estate boasts of mud roads, drainage facilities among other infrastructure built through pooled money.
With real estate becoming hard to come by in a fast expanding city, small industrialists were hard pressed to operate from within the city in the face of stiff opposition from various stakeholders.
It was in this backdrop that they joined hands and bought over 300 acres to develop an industrial estate on their own on the busy Coimbatore-Tirupur corridor. However, fund shortage began rearing its ugly head and the development works were hampered. It was in this backdrop that Express carried a report detailing the novel industrial initiative and the problems it was mired in.
After coming across the report published in these columns on August 21, District Industries Centre and SIDBI inspected the site, held discussions with stakeholders and assured speedy help from the government’s side. District Industries Centre General Manager S Asokan said, “The SIDBI branch manager and I visited the site after coming across a news report. We spoke with the office bearers of the industrial estate and assured that necessary action would be taken to give electricity connection to the estate. SIDBI would provide loans to industrialists to lay bitumen road and ensure drainage and water supply,” he said
Giving an insight into the two types of loans that would be made available to the industrialists, Asokan said, “If the industrialists are shifting their establishments from the city to the industrial estate, they would be alloted Rs10 crore with a 75 per cent subsidy component. If industrialists start new establishments at the estate, Rs 5 crore loan would be given with a 50 per cent subsidy component.”
Arignar Anna Industrial Estate Land Owners Welfare Association general secretary I Sahul Hameed said, “We started this initiative in 1989. Till now, basic infrastructure facilities have not been ensured to the site. Many investors have already passed away. Now that the government has decided to help us, we are confident that the estate would soon be up and running.”