GUWAHATI: The Assam Cabinet has approved a plan to build a township on 550 acres of Nagaon Paper Mill land owned by the now-defunct Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited in the Morigaon district near Guwahati that the State government had acquired in March.
This was decided in its weekly cabinet meeting held on Monday, December 19, 2022.
The proposal to grant the tourism sector industry-level status was approved by the council of ministers, according to Jayanta Malla Baruah, Minister of Public Health Engineering, Tourism, Skill, Employment and Entrepreneurship.
This will allow a variety of businesses to take advantage of incentives offered under the state industrial policy.
Notably, Baruah said that the land in Jagiroad will be developed as a satellite township of Guwahati. As per the move, the township will be set up on 550 acres of land following discussions with the local people but the preliminary decision for a satellite town was taken at Monday’s meeting, informed the state minister.
This may be recalled that the Assam government had earlier this year on March 28 announced the acquisition of public sector undertaking (PSU) Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited's (HPCL) two defunct paper mills in the state for an amount of ₹375 crore.
That time around, the Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) successfully bid for the units at Jagiroad in Morigaon and Panchgram in Hailakandi.
HSCL's unit in Panchgram stopped its operations on October 20, 2015, while the mill in Jagiroad stopped operations on March 31, 2017. No salary was paid to the staff of the two units in January and March of 2017, respectively.
The Assam cabinet approved a ₹700 crore assistance package for the two paper mills on September 30 of the previous year. The Government had stated at the time that the majority of this sum would go towards paying staff salaries and benefits, while a smaller fraction would go toward other expenses including electricity costs. Both paper mills' combined land area is around 1,550 acres.
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