After 20 smart industrial estates under construction, the government is now looking to facilitate setting up of more industrial parks in smaller towns and cities, a senior official said on Thursday.

“We hope that the framework for these (industrial parks) will be ready within this financial year,” Department of Industry and Internal Trade Promotion Secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia said at FICCI’s annual general meeting.

Industrial Parks in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities will meet the land requirements of the industry at reasonable cost and provide facilities that will be equivalent to plug and play facilities.

“Consultations have been made with the industry on these parks,” he said without elaborating.

In India, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are classified by population, with Tier 2 cities having a population of 50,000 to 100,000 and Tier 3 cities having a population of 20,000 to 50,000.

Bhatia said that the work of 20 new smart industrial cities has already started.

12 out of 20 received Cabinet approval in August. Of the 20 smart cities, four are operational and four are under construction. Cities are coming up with industrial corridors of which 11 have already been notified and their potential plans have been drawn up.

The 12 smart industrial cities will come up in an area of ​​26,000 acres and will cost the government Rs 28,602 crore.

The official said the government is also working to reduce compliance that businesses have to do outside big cities and take the reform process to the district level where smaller companies interact on a more regular basis. .

Under the Business Reform Action Plan that has been in place since 2020, states have identified 50,000 compliance issues that the industry has to follow and 42,000 of them have either been eliminated or by changing procedures or digitizing them. has been done “We want to deepen the process for which we have already started working into a framework where differences among states on procedures can be eased,” said the DPIIT secretary. Efforts are also on to see that best practices are replicated within states, he said.

He said that the department along with other ministries is leading in fixing the foreign direct investment policy as a result of which more than 90 percent foreign investment comes through automatic route.

“FDI does not come alone but with technology as well as access to global value chains and markets. Businesses should take advantage of this relaxed FDI policy.

Bhatia said that the startup initiatives of the government are also progressing well. There are now 1.53 lakh registered startups in the country. “We have a good funding scheme that has been implemented. A core financing facility of around Rs 10,000 has been extended to more than 1000 startups. Similar facilities have been extended to incubators. We DeepTech is also focusing on facilitating startups with their long-term funding needs through bookings.