HP to provide land for construction of workers' houses: Dhumal

Shimla, Apr 10 (UNI) Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today said the state government has taken up with the Industries Association to construct residential accommodation for workers in different industrial areas of the state for which the state government is considering providing them land.

Replying to a supplementary by Kaul Singh Thakur (Congress), he said keeping in mind the low wages of the workers and almost non-existant residential facilities available in the industrial areas of the state, the government was making all efforts to pave the way for providing residential facilities to these workers on cheaper and subsidised rates.

Mr Dhumal, however, said this should have planned earlier, when the industrial package had come to HP and large number of workers got employment in the industrial areas.

Replying to the main question by Mr Singh, the Chief Minister said that after receiving special industrial package from the Centre, proposals for 10,498 new units and 310 expansions of existing units were cleared by Single Window Authority or Industrial Department of which 3708 new units and 266 expansions of existing units have come into commercial production.

He informed the House that as per project proposals, total investment proposed in these projects was Rs 29,033 crore of which investment involved in the units, which have been established was approximately Rs 3374 crore.

Employment proposed to be generated against the approved projects was 3,64,196 against which employment opportunities in the units established were 51,647 only, he said.

Replying to a joint question by Gangu Ram Musafir (Congress) and Virender Kanwar and Kishori Lal (both BJP) and Hira Lal (independent), he said that state government was seriously considering formulating a Master Plan for tourism sector in the state keeping in mind the enormous developmental possibilities and new challenges in the tourism sector.

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