Chandigarh, March 24 – The Haryana Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Sh. Nayab Singh Saini here today, approved significant amendments to the Industrial Licensing Policy dated 01.10.2015, with the objective of rationalizing regulatory provisions, reducing financial burden on developers, and promoting planned industrial development across the state.
The amendments have been introduced in response to long-pending industry demands, including representations from stakeholders such as NAREDCO, and are aimed at bringing clarity, consistency, and parity with decisions taken in other sectoral policies such as the Textile Policy.
A key decision of the Cabinet relates to the rationalization of External Development Charges (EDC) in agriculture zones. It has been approved that in cases where an industrial licence has been granted in agriculture zones beyond 500 metres of the urbanisable limit, and where completion or part completion certificate has already been issued, no EDC shall be payable if such land subsequently gets included within the urbanisable zone or within 500 metres thereof. However, for the remaining non completed portion of such licensed land, EDC will be applicable as per prevailing norms for industrial colonies in urbanisable zones. Further, in cases where a developer seeks specific infrastructure facilities for the already completed or part-completed area, only the actual cost of such infrastructure, as provided by the concerned government agencies, shall be charged.
The Cabinet also approved amendments to enable more efficient utilization of land in Transport and Communication sectors. The existing industrial licensing policy has been aligned with the Change of Land Use (CLU) policy dated 19.03.2021 by allowing industrial units in Transport and Communication sectors, thereby ensuring parity between licensing and CLU mechanisms. Under the revised provisions, permission for setting up industrial colonies as well as CLU permissions will now be allowed in Transport and Communication zones of published Final Development Plans, upto 25 percent of the total net planned area of such zones to enable enhanced land utilization through compact development.
This change also extends the applicability of such provisions to hyper potential and high potential towns, which were previously not covered, thus expanding industrial opportunities in rapidly growing urban centres.
