New Delhi, Nov 10: The Centre has cleared Rs 675 crore industrial infrastructure (clusters) upgradation scheme to provide critical physical infrastructure in clusters or industrial locations. The scheme, which would be implemented during the tenth plan, would aim at providing quality infrastructure through public-private partnership in select functional industrial clusters or locations that has great potential to be globally competitive, an official statement said today.

Centre would give one-time grant-in-aid to a special purpose vehicle of the cluster associations formed for development of infrastructure like transport, water, common power generating units and road.

The assistance would be 75 per cent of the project cost subject to ceiling of Rs 50 crore per cluster with 25 per cent being financed by other stakeholders of the cluster with a minimum industry contribution of 15 per cent to the total project cost.

The Central assistance will be three per cent of the total project cost.

It is proposed to take 20-25 clusters for development initially under this central sector scheme.

The scheme is in pursuance of and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley's announcement in the Exim Policy that pro-active steps would be taken to enhance productivity.
Bureau Report