Farewell to the native

SANTANU SANYAL

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  Ever simple, R.P. Goenka tasting ‘jhalmuri’ (a Bengali snack) at Spencer’s Hyper store in Kolkata. — A. Roy Chowdhury
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  Rama Prasad Goenka

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You Could never take the Bengali out of this Marwari business tycoon

April 14, 2013:  

Some 30 years ago, a Bengali daily described Rama Prasad Goenka as “one of the greatest Bengalis” in an article that reflected on how much the Marwari business tycoon had adopted the State, its people and culture as his own.

“If I’m not a Bengali, who is?” he would quip. “I’m the sixth generation of my family here with deep roots going back to nearly 200 years.” The Goenka family’s roots can be traced to as back as 1820s when Ramdutt Goenka came to Kolkata from a small village in Rajasthan to do business with the British East India Company.

Born on March 1, 1930, Rama Prasad Goenka or Ramababu, as he preferred to be called, considered himself a native of Bengal.

He was educated at Presidency College, was married in the city, raised his children here and built the business he had inherited into an empire. His ‘Bengali-ness’ was most noticeable every Vijaya Dashami (part of the five-day Durga Puja festival), when he would visit his Bengali friends, including some high-ranking Marxists leaders, dressed in dhoti and Punjabi (round-necked kurta), carrying with him home-made sweets.

SETBACKS

His long and successful innings as an industrialist was not always smooth and easy. He suffered two major setbacks, both in Bengal. He acquired Dunlop India from the British parent company in 1984 but had to leave it after four years, after a bitter battle with the Chhabrias. In the late 1980s, he accompanied Jyoti Basu in a helicopter to Haldia to lay the foundation-stone of the petrochemical complex there, ostensibly to act as co-promoter of the project. But he subsequently withdrew, long before the project saw the light of day. Two of his other regrets were his group’s absence in the coal mining and telecom sectors. The investment plan in coal mining was not pursued in time and the group’s cellular business had to be sold to meet commitments in Ceat Finance, that had fallen on bad days.

POWER VENTURE

By far his most significant achievement was venturing into power generation and distribution, particularly the acquisition in 1991 of Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (now CESC Ltd), the over 100-year-old power utility set up by the British. Interestingly, his son Sanjiv Goenka had once told this correspondent that his father had initially vehemently opposed the CESC acquisition. Ramababu had felt it was too big a task, an intrinsically difficult business, compounded by the then crippling power situation in West Bengal that could make people hostile to the new management. He finally relented as Sanjiv’s mother strongly supported the son, who pushed for acquisition.

During his long career, Ramababu had inspired many. But perhaps his biggest influence was on Sanjiv “not only as a father, but also as a human being and businessman”. Over the years, the son watched how his father related to people, handled critical situations and inspired those around him. Yet, he admits that he has not been able to emulate him fully.

“After all, we’re two different people from two very different generations and everyone is not born to be a legend in his lifetime, which my father is,” Sanjiv once said. Another difference, of course, is that while the son got many things virtually on a platter, his father had to strive hard for some of his accomplishments.

TRADITIONAL BUSINESS

Ramababu grew up in a traditional business environment made up of such things as jute, tea, cotton textiles, banking and some chemicals. But he gradually broke away from the beaten path and charted a new course by entering such areas as electricity, tyres, carbon black, engineering, cables, pharmaceuticals, music and retail, to name a few.

His family had distinguished itself as a prominent business family during the Raj. Both, his grandfather Sir Badridas Goenka, and grand-uncle Sir Hariram Goenka, were conferred knighthoods by the British Crown for their outstanding contribution to Indian business and community.

Vrishti Beniwal  |  New Delhi  April 11, 2013 Last Updated at 00:59 IST

Annual turnover threshold for GST set to be Rs 25 lakh

Dealers with up to Rs 60-lakh turnover could opt out with 1% levy

• The Centre and states have crossed another hurdle in the way of Goods & Services Tax (GST) by agreeing on an annual turnover threshold of Rs 25 lakh. This means businesses with annual turnover less than Rs 25 lakh would be kept out of the GST purview.

To address the issue of dual control of traders - by both the Union government and state governments - in GST, it has been decided that taxpayers with annual turnover of over Rs 1.5 crore would be taxed by the Centre, which will later disburse to states their share. Similarly, those below Rs 1.5-crore turnover would deposit their taxes to states, which would subsequently pass on to the Centre its share.

Also, there would be a composition scheme (presumptive tax) for dealers with annual turnover of up to Rs 60 lakh. A dealer could opt for a compounded levy of one per cent on taxable turnover, instead of paying GST at the standard rate; but he would lose the right to claim tax credit for these.

These decisions were taken last week in Patna by a technical committee on GST, comprising officials from both the Centre and states. The group, which will have its third meeting next week, will give its report for consideration of the empowered committee of state finance ministers at its meeting in Mussoorie on May 10 and 11.

Currently, the threshold for central excise duty and service tax are annual turnover of Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 10 lakh, respectively. For value-added tax (VAT), it is Rs 10 lakh in most states.

With a threshold of Rs 25 lakh, the Centre will have an assessee base of about 200,000 for excise duty, compared with 130,000 at present. Its service tax assessee base, however, would come down from about 700,000 to roughly 250,000 under GST as the threshold increases and the Centre has to share the collections with states. In return, the Centre would get tax from about two million of the three million VAT assessees.

Earlier, states were insisting on retaining the threshold at Rs 1.5 crore for the Centre and at Rs 10 lakh for states, but the Centre wanted a common threshold of Rs 10 lakh.

For inter-state movement of goods, which would attract Integrated GST (IGST), no threshold has been proposed; anybody moving goods from one state to another would have to pay the tax. An exception in case of IGST is that the traders might have to face dual control. It is still to be decided as to who would collect tax in case of IGST.

"For inter-state movement of goods, it would be difficult to decide which state should collect the tax," an official who attended the meeting told Business Standard.

The Centre has been saying it should administer these taxpayers, but states are not ready to yield control. About 60 per cent of traders are involved in inter-state movement of goods. Even with a cut-off of Rs 1.5 crore for dual control, the Centre would administer about 980,000 assessees, higher than its current assessee base of 830,000. This issue may be further discussed at the next meeting of the committee on IGST.

A floor rate of 9-10 per cent for standard goods with a band of two percentage points, a lower merit rate of four-five per cent, a rate of one per cent for precious metals and service tax rate of eight per cent have also been discussed at the two previous meetings of the committee on revenue-neutral rate (RNR). A small group has been formed to finalise RNR. The third meeting of the committee is scheduled next week.

Marwari business model

The article on “Marwari business model - I”(Business Line, April 8) has nicely covered the modern concepts which are followed worldwide under different names. The capacity of the Marwaris to work in difficult situations, adopt risk management practices and connect with the local community is praiseworthy.

India’s young entrepreneurs must take lessons from these stalwarts, who followed strong management principles to thrive in the present socio-economic milieu.

During freedom movement, even Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru admired their contribution to economic development across the country.

S. P. Garg

The Marwari business model

The Marwari business model-I

by HARISH DAMODARAN

   source: The Hindubusinessline

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G.D. Birla and Lakshmi Mittal: Both their grandfathers worked for Tarachand Ghanshyamdas, one of the first ‘great’ Marwari firms.

The first of a two-part essay on Marwari enterprise and its present-day relevance.

The Marwaris represent the only business community one would truly call pan-Indian.

For a cluster of Bania/Jain merchant castes originally from the Marwar (Jodhpur), Bikaner and Shekhawati desert tracts of Rajasthan, their sinking roots into the business landscape covering virtually the whole of the country is a remarkable phenomenon.

Till around the 16th century, the Agarwals, Oswals, Maheshwaris and Khandelwals of this belt – loosely clubbed under the appellation of ‘Marwari’ – were confined to their homeland as local traders and money-lenders, if not army provision suppliers and financiers for various Rajput princely regimes.

The latter role was crucial in expanding their footprints to other lands. As ration suppliers and paymasters, they often accompanied Rajput units attached to Mughal armies, which, in turn, opened up avenues for setting up shop all over the Gangetic plains and the Deccan.

From the 18th century, there were Marwari bankers financing even the assorted independent, yet cash-strapped, principalities that had arisen from the ruins of the Mughal Empire. Thus, the Jagat Seths became treasurers to the Nawab of Bengal, just as the firm of Gopaldas Manohardas bankrolled the Kingdom of Benares, and the Ganeriwala and Pittie families ingratiated themselves with the Nizam of Hyderabad. Typically, they lent against the security of ijara or land revenue-farming rights assigned for a particular region.

Desert diaspora

But the real impetus to Marwari outmigration came during British rule. By the early 19th century, they were significantly present across Delhi, the grain markets of Hapur, Khurja and Hathras in western Uttar Pradesh, and the river ports of Farrukhabad, Mirzapur, Patna and Bhagalpur along the Ganges.

This process gathered further steam with the coming of the railways, as the community spread itself to Kolkata and beyond to Bangladesh, and from there, up the Brahmaputra valley into Assam and across the Bay of Bengal into Burma. Within this overall eastward direction, there were sideward forays into Jharkhand, Orissa, northern Bihar, Nepal and the highlands of Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Another large migration stream was to Central India (especially the princely states of Gwalior, Bhopal and Indore, and also Chhattisgarh), Vidarbha and the Maratha hinterland. Some of it spilled over to the Deccan, before trailing off to a trickle at Madras and Mysore.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, a veritable pan-Indian Marwari business community had emerged – a commercial resource group using the hundi, an indigenous bill of exchange, to move money and goods across the length and breadth of the subcontinent.

The hundi made it possible for a grain dealer from Kanpur to sell in Kolkata without taking cash and risk being waylaid during transit. He could, instead, have the buyer draw a hundi of equivalent amount in his favour and present it to the latter’s agent or drawee at Kanpur, who would make the payment in cash. Alternatively, the seller could transfer the hundi through endorsement to a lender, who would extend the loan at a discount to its value. The same hundi was, then, encashed at par by the lender.

The hundi, in other words, served both as a cashless remittance facility enabling long-distance inland trade and also a source of mobile credit, by virtue of it being freely transferable through successive endorsements before being finally presented to the drawee. It was the lubricant that greased the wheels of commerce, by connecting some 1,700 nationwide produce mandis and 12 nodal money markets handling the bulk of discounting of these bills at the turn of the century.

The first conglomerates

The traditional hundi, alongside the modern-day railways and telegraph, also laid the ground for the birth of large multi-branch Marwari trading firms such as Tarachand Ghanshyamdas – which, in 1870, had offices at Kolkata and Mumbai, Amritsar in Punjab, the Malwa opium belt of Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere, including through related entities.

These firms were magnets for attracting fellow Rajasthani clansmen, who could join as clerks, managers, brokers and partners. G.D. Birla’s grandfather, Shivnarayan worked with Tarachand Ghanshyamdas; so did the grandfather of the global steel czar, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal. Likewise, there was Sevaram Ramrikhdas that employed, among others, the RPG Group patriarch, Rama Prasad Goenka’s grandfather’s great-grandfather, Ramdutt. The Sevaram Ramrikhdas firm’s division resulted in independent offshoots at Kanpur, Mirzapur, Farrukhabad and Kolkata: The Singhanias are descendents of the Kanpur line.

The functional utility of such extensive upcountry networks was soon recognised by British expatriate firms, who started engaging the Marwaris as intermediaries to finance and forward raw jute for their mills or to redistribute cotton piece goods imported by them.

But increasing awareness of the power derived from control over the hinterland supply chain led the community, in due course, to also undermine the operations of the British agency houses themselves. In this, the practical trading skills and financial ingenuity of its members, honed over generations, proved most useful.

‘Desi’ futures & options

In 1905, six Marwaris introduced fatka or futures trading in raw jute that registered meteoric growth at the baras (informal exchanges) of Kolkata’s Burrabazar market.

These contracts – rarely resulting in delivery of the underlying goods, since most purchases and sales got cancelled against each other before maturity date – weren’t taken kindly to by entrenched European interests. Used only to spot buying, they saw their supply-and-demand calculations and produce flows disrupted by the rampant speculation engendered by such trades, which extended to cotton, opium and grain as well.

No wonder, one of their representatives claimed fatka to have been “invented” by Marwaris “deprived of the pleasures of rain gambling”, and only to satisfy “their craving for the gains of chance in a system of contracts purporting to evidence the purchase and sale of jute, but [where] in no single instance has jute ever been delivered”!

That view, in a sense, echoes those of many who even today harbour a suspicious attitude towards futures transactions, which they contrast to ‘legitimate’ business.

Apart from the hundi and fatka, the Marwaris also pioneered trading in indigenous options (satta), giving the buyers the right, but with no obligation, to buy or sell a certain commodity at a specified future date and price. These could be teji (call) or mandi (put), with the premium paid by the buyer of the option known as nazrana.

The success of Marwari enterprise can, in short, be put down to three components:

Pan-India presence, key to the forging of long-distance networks of trade and finance, extending from the desert towns of Rajasthan to the Brahmaputra valley;

Community resources and connections, which could be leveraged to raise capital or expand the scope and spread of business operations. A firm could open as many branches as the number of brothers, nephews, in-laws, cousins or trusted accountants permitted. Over time, each of these would develop into or further spawn independent firms, facilitating diffusion of entrepreneurship within the community;

Evolving sophisticated trading and financing mechanisms, complementing their ostensibly hardwired talents at sourcing/selling of produce and ability to draw on information or ground-level knowledge not normally accessible to others.

These traditional strengths have revealed themselves even in more recent times – be it in organised industry, share markets or, for that matter, modern-format retail and e-commerce (the promoters of Big Bazaar, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Myntra happen to be all northern Bania/Jains, if not Marwaris).

The second part of this essay will look deeper at the relevance and limitations of the ‘Marwari way’ of doing business in today’s world.

The Marwari business model-II

Harish Damodaran

Source; The hindubusinessline   

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FILE PHOTO of Ramkrishna Dalmia, seen with a wire recorder device to improve his English.

Having a business presence spanning much of the subcontinent is a feature that has distinguished the Marwaris from other prominent trading communities.
The latter — the Parsis, Sindhis, Gujarati Banias/Jains, Lohanas and Bhatias, Nattukottai Chettiars, Punjabi Khatris/Aroras or Muslim Memons, Khojas and Bohras — have historically had more geographically concentrated inland operations: Some of them had predominantly overseas mercantile or investment interests.
The ability to draw on extensive pan-Indian bazaar connections made a huge difference during the interwar years, more so with the Great Depression. It tilted the balance against foreign trade, in favour of those whose business activity was largely domestic-focused.
The Marwaris were the ones to make the most out of the disruption of normal trading channels during wartime. The speculative profits earned from fatka and teji-mandi transactions — that rose manifold at the numerous commodities exchanges formed in this period — they partly funnelled into industry. That also included buying out the units of beleaguered European managing agencies, to whom they were previously brokers and financiers.
Dalmia’s exploits
Exemplifying this trajectory was Ramkrishna Dalmia, arguably the greatest Marwari businessman before Independence.
Originally from Chirawa in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region, Dalmia went to Kolkata to join his maternal uncle’s bullion business. In no time, the ambitious young man had launched his own operations, starting with gambling on silver prices during World War-I, followed by shares at the Calcutta Stock Exchange and trading in commodities.
Dalmia’s indus
trial debut was through a sugar mill in 1933 at a site in Bihar’s Rohtas district. Over time, it also housed plants manufacturing cement, asbestos, paper, board, vanaspati, sulphuric acid, chlorine, caustic soda and bleaching powder. These units — besides a foundry, central workshop, power house and a rail feeder line connecting the 3,800-acre complex — became part of a single entity, Rohtas Industries, that may have well anticipated today’s much-touted Special Economic Zones.
But Dalmia did not stop there. In 1937, he challenged the quasi-monopoly of ACC — a combine of 10 cement firms formed only the year before — by commissioning plants at Karachi and Dandot (both now in Pakistan), Charkhi Dadri (Haryana) and Trichy (Tamil Nadu), apart from the Rohtas Industries facility. The ensuing price war lasted till 1941, when the World War boom lifted sentiments.
From speculation, trading and manufacturing, Dalmia’s next port of call was finance. In 1943, he promoted Bharat Bank Ltd. This, along with two insurance ventures (Bharat Insurance and Bharat Fire & General Insurance), provided a captive fund pool, especially for the takeover binge that Dalmia indulged in over the next few years.
The companies he bought — with interests as diverse as flour-milling, sugar, jute and cotton textiles, civil aviation, railways, coal mines, electricity supply and newspapers — belonged mainly to British concerns like Govan Brothers, Andrew Yule and Bennett Coleman, whose owners weren’t too bullish on business prospects in Independent India. By 1948, he also had controlling stakes in Punjab National Bank.
The downside
Ramkrishna Dalmia’s case is illustrative on three counts. The first, of course, is the raw drive and venturous spirit of a first-generation entrepreneur it highlights.
The second is the role of kinship and community ties, a valuable resource pool not available to every aspiring tycoon. Dalmia benefited from learning the ropes under an uncle, well entrenched in Kolkata’s Marwari trading circles. Even his initial foray into sugar was with a big land-owning relative in Bihar. All the subsequent ventures involved his brother, Jaidayal and son-in-law, Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain – under the ‘Dalmia-Sahu Jain’ group banner.
The third element was the extent to which Dalmia’s business operations remained grounded in the bazaar. The ‘speculative’ phase did not end with putting up factories. Rather, the proclivity for playing the market — including diverting public issue proceeds from one company to finance the activities of others, or booking fictitious losses on share transactions between group entities — only rose with time.
The above three facets — inherent risk-taking disposition, ability to leverage community resources, and overwhelming bazaar orientation even after entry into the ‘modern’ industrial sphere — can be said to apply to Marwari enterprise broadly, with their associated strengths and weaknesses.
In Dalmia’s case, his adroit speculative skills eventually got the better of him. As details emerged of how deposit and premium monies from banks and insurance firms controlled by the group were used to fund acquisitions — of Bennett Coleman, among others — he had to suffer the ignominy of a two-year jail term in 1956, just like Satyam Computers’ Ramalinga Raju some five decades later.
Even before that, the Dalmia-Sahu Jain empire was partitioned among his brother’s and son-in-law’s families, for reasons still shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Many of the erstwhile group’s concerns, including Rohtas Industries, have since folded up, while the surviving ones, save Bennett Coleman, are not really in the top league.
The route ahead
That links up with two major limitations of Marwari, or even Indian, enterprise in general.
The first has to do with entrepreneurial zeal and ‘animal spirits’, which, in most family-owned businesses, tends to disappear along with the founding patriarchs. The Bangurs, Modis, Singhanias, Shrirams and Dalmias represent this trend in varying degrees.
The same possibly holds for the Birlas as well: Among its various factions today, only the $ 40 billion Aditya Birla Group can measure up to, if not surpass, the vision of G.D. Birla. And that happened because his grandson, Aditya Vikram, chose to tread an independent path. In the seventies — when most others, particularly Marwaris, were happy doing business domestically — he established viscose staple fibre, spun yarn, carbon black and palm oil refining units all across South-East Asia. The latter’s son, Kumar Mangalam, has gone one step further, in aiming for global leadership in the industries where the group is active: Viscose and acrylic fibre, carbon black, aluminium and cement. That calls for no less ambition and animal spirits, even if more evolved and organised than innately present in first-generation entrepreneurs.
The second limitation flows from an inability to transcend the bazaar that provided the basis for capital accumulation for most Marwari firms (unlike for say, an Infosys or Dr Reddy’s Laboratories). But innovativeness in trading and financing – where there’s probably not much JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or even Walmart can teach our Banias — is inadequate and certainly cannot substitute for knowledge of the factory floor and production processes.
Weakness on the latter front may not have mattered in a closed domestic economy, where the trader-industrialist’s choice of industry was dictated more by the profits it offered and the availability of licenses at that point of time. It was both theoretically and practically feasible, then, to straddle diverse industries and operate suboptimal capacity plants using borrowed, outdated technologies. These could be ‘managed’ even from a distance, without going too much into the technical details of manufacture.
The partha system of accounting devised by the Marwaris was perfectly suited for this purpose. Under it, every group firm provided informed estimates of how much it cost to manufacture a given quantity of their product. Based on it and the expected profits corresponding to the sale price, the promoters sitting at their gaddis in Kolkata or Mumbai compared the unit’s actual daily earnings to the normative partha cash flows.
If substantial deviations occurred, a trouble-shooter was sent to check out the ground situation and report back. In extreme cases — rare in a protected economic environment — it led to a shake-up of the plant team or closure of the business.
The above detached approach has limited relevance in the post-liberalisation era, where the success of Lakshmi Mittal, Kumar Mangalam Birla or Anil Agarwal owes largely to their focusing on particular industries and building global-scale state-of-the-art plants.
While their in-born talents in buying and selling or having connections from relatives already in business will always stand the Marwaris in good stead, that by itself is not enough in today’s world where other things are increasingly mattering more.
( Concluded)

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The two-part article on Marwari enterprise and its present-day relevance.

Old Memorandum of Sikkim Chamber of Commerce to 13th Finance Commission

SIKKIM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

M.G.ROAD, GANGTOK,SIKKIM 737101

The Chairman

13th Finance Commission

Government of India

Camp: Gangtok

Sikkim

Hon’ble Sir,

Sikkim Chamber of Commerce greets Dr Vijay L. Kelkar, Chairman,  Shri B K Chaturvedi, Dr Indira Rajaraman, Dr Sanjeev Mishra, Prof Atul Sarma and Shri Sumit Bose- members of 13th Finance Commission and wish a comfortable stay in Sikkim . We sincerely hope that your visit will bring more prosperity to Sikkim, help further the process of integration and expedite progress of its inhabitants.

Sikkim Chamber of Commerce is the only trade organization which has its roots in the former Kingdom of Sikkim. We have seen the rule of Chogyal (King) who has always been kind to his people and the traders in particular whom he always regarded as pillars of economy and most instrumental in bringing development.

The merger of Sikkim with India has opened flood gates to development and prosperity. The successive governments have done their best to bring more happiness on the face of people. The current government headed by Dr Pawan Chamling is leading the State since 14 years and has made a major impact on the economy providing foundation to modern Sikkim, successfully placing the State to a position of envy and delight for all.

Dr Pawan Chamling, Honorable Chief Minister the visionary personality has brought many new ideas of governance in Sikkim. The empowerment of the Panchayats and Right to Information have both helped in creating a situation where every rupee is thoughtfully spent for the people.

 Sikkim, the tiny Himalayan State is a paradise on earth where nature has been the kindest possible, bestowing its people with topography ranging from 300 feet to to 28000 feet and as a result of which varieties of climates from Polar to Sub tropical,  flora and fauna , people and their cultures exist here in the most harmonious manner under the blessings of our guardian deity Mt Kanchenjunga. Sikkim the model State with more than 11 languages and 5 climatic zones and multiple cultures thus offers an UNIQUE PLACE for research for the cause of mankind.

Placing due recognition to the strategic location of the State, it is imperative that the Union Government does all that is possible to maintain peace and tranquility in the region by uplifting the standard of living, making the people more knowledgeable, competitive and accessible to different modes of modernization that are urgently required for overall development of the State and its people

Though principally an agricultural State, the region is fast attaining the position of a favoured tourism destination and the youths are inclined towards making it best by exploring newer vistas, determined in making tourism as an alternate source of constructive employment . It is desired that the Commission takes due cognizance of this  necessity of the people and recommend continuous and larger resources for creation of  additional facilities like development of adventure parks, ropeway from Gangtok to Nathula and new assets in village tourism.

We are grateful to Government of India for having appreciated the need for better, smooth and reliable transportation system in this difficult area and for being kind enough to flag off work in construction of Airport at Pakyong and Rail link from Sevok to Rangpo.

In this context may we submit here  that since the area is  landslide prone  and often subjected to blockades due to various reasons including vagaries of nature, an alternate double lane highway , is most immediately required connecting Nathula to Siliguri which can be used in peace time for trade and transit and during war times to protect the nation, such that the process of development, trade, commerce and industry  goes ahead uninterrupted.

And since this process of creating infrastructure is likely to take  4 to 7 years, introduction of a subsidized 18 seater helicopter service is solicited at the earliest.

This Chamber is grateful to the Government of India for having announced setting up of Industrial Training Institutes at all district headquarters in Sikkim. On the trade, commerce and industrial front it is desired:

•       Home entrepreneurs should be encouraged for setting up industries by providing them additional benefits.

•       Since the upcoming Hydel Power Projects shall be generating huge power energy to the tune of 5500 MWs by the next 10 years and 12% free power to be given by them to the State shall be in excess of domestic requirements, home entrepreneurs could be considered for highly subsidised power supply as in the case of Meghalaya.

•       Reduction of excise duty exemption benefits as earlier available   vide Policy on Industries in North East has started producing negative results and this is viewed as detrimental to the growth of industries/employment in Sikkim. It is prayed that 100% excise duty exemption be continued as  announced in the Industrial Policy 2007.

•       In view of the coming National Goods and Services tax regime which shall ultimately ensure uniformity of prices nationwide in the interest of consumer, this Chamber requests that all the allied taxes like Toll Tax and Environment Cess etc be abolished and help smooth running of  trade, commerce & industry.

•       In view of rich forest wealth the State is blessed with, the Commission be kind enough to recommend allowing exploration of medicinal herbs on a commercial basis which could be monitored and regulated by an appropriate authority.

•       With due respect to the high quality of talent, environment friendly atmosphere, fast connectivity, and easy adaptability of people, it is felt that the State could be developed into a model centre to house I T Parks, Call Centres, BPO Centres etc which would definitely be more economical here and shall provide employment and revenue to the State.

•       It is seen that there is a continuous movement of youth from villages to towns to find employment which has resulted in burdening the already constrained resources of the towns and weakened the rural base making development lopsided. We are of the considered view that there is a need to encourage development of the State as a totally Urban State and the Commission be kind enough to  liberally fund the state on this account.

 •      Various incentives like Income tax and Excise duty exemptions and a lot of subsidies  has attracted a number of giant Pharma Units whose total investment in a few years will be more than 5000 crores. Besides providing employment,  it has raised the land prices to the benefit of local owners and changed the mind framework of the local community towards enterprises. A number of industrial subsidiaries sponsored by Sikkim residents are on the pipeline. It is suggested that the Union Government should come out to fund “creation of Industrial land pool” for inviting more investments for the development of the State.

•       Education has been the prime target to make people more knowledgeable and a free education with free text book and  meals, has been a big attraction to lure children to schools. 82% of the population is now educated. Besides, Sikkim University  is working hard for providing on a perennial basis streams of knowledge for people of Sikkim and nearby areas. The people of Sikkim shall ever remain grateful if the Commission is kind enough to recommend setting up of a Regional Engineering College in the State.

•       Sir, We are not far behind in Sports. Our ace footballer Bhaichung Bhutia is bringing national laurels. The Government is creating infrastructure for sports developments and in several sports Sikkim is showing its presence in National Games. More investment in this field is called for  like setting up of specific game oriented and floodlit stadia that would qualify us for holding International events. The people of Sikkim shall be honoured if your goodselves would recommend setting up of a full fledged operational Sports Authority of India Facility/Complex in the State to enable the region produce quality sportsmen to compete both at National and International games.

Health Tourism is an area where we can put more think tank. These days Health tourism has become a great forex earner. Since Sikkim has a very healthy climate, it is suggested that Government of India can enmark a fund to make a Study on how and In what way an attractive package can be developed to attract patients for health rejunuvation in Sikkim. Investments on physical assets development could be thought of once the study is completed.

After the visit of our Honourable Chief Minister to Europe and US, he visualized making Towns of Sikkim cleaner, more attractive and more tourists friendly. Works has been undertaken to give a facelift to M G Road, the heart of Gangtok and we all have found a  change for the better. Similar beautification projects are being taken by the Government. We urge Commission to recommend special funds on a 100% grant for the beautification of the towns of Sikkim.

Sikkim today exhibits an excellent example of brotherhood and friendship between all its inhabitants, the Lepchas, The Bhutias, the Nepalis and the Plainsmen who  have made Sikkim their home for good.

Sir, we are grateful to Government of India for giving exemption from Direct taxes to Sikkim Subject Holders and we request that all the “LEFT OUT SIKKIMESE” living here since the days of the monarchy are also dealt with in uniform manner with due respect to their sentiments and sense of belonging with this soil

Under the dynamic leadership of Dr Pawan Chamling Sikkim has great future and things are on the positive notes all over Sikkim. Sikkim is projected to fast change into a modern, well networked City State as our Chief Minster often mentions.

We have the highest regard for this Commission and we hope that you will understand the special situation of Sikkim, its strategic location, its difficult terrain and remoteness,  its warm people and its natural wealth and  recommend more resources for  development of this land of Kanchenjunga.

May Guru Padmasambhava’s blessings ever remain on all of us.

With highest regards,

Yours truly,

S.K.Sarda

President

Sikkim Chamber of Commerce

GANGTOK:  10TH NOV.2008.

Gangtok, April 5, 2013

Nagarik Suraksha Samiti (NSS) convener Prem Goyal has demanded the State government to make public the letter sent to New Delhi sent from Sikkim containing objectionable claims on Sikkimese Nepali community.

Chief Minister Pawan Chamling had recently disclosed that such letter is being examined by the Centre. He however did not reveal who had communicated such note to the Centre.

“Such ambiguous comments could create division among the communities here living in peaceful coexistence. The Chief Minister must disclose who had written such letter to New Delhi leveling disgracing the Sikkimese Nepali community. If he does not disclose the identity, then it will mean that he is making an irresponsible statement causing disharmony among all Sikkimese”, said Goyal.

The NSS covener was speaking during the inauguration of the office of All Sikkim Educated Self-employed Association here at Sisha Golai on April 4.

The office aims to receive grievances from the public which would be taken up by the association.

Submitting his grievances, Goyal urged the association to probe into such controversial letter. The letter, as mentioned by the Chief Minister, is a very serious matter which can lead to infighting among the people here, he said.

Goyal has been fighting hard for income tax exemption to the old settlers here at par with the Sikkim Subject holders.

(Courtesy: Sikkim Express)