Former minister and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray has fired yet another salvo against the Shinde Fadnavis government for the loss of the Medicine Devices Park proposed in Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC). In a scathing tweet, Aaditya said, ‘’After two projects namely Vedanta-Foxconn (at Talegaon) and Bulk Drug Park (in Raigad district), now Maharashtra also has to miss the Medicine Devices Park. Yet another project has been taken away from Maharashtra despite having good quality infrastructure and skilled manpower. Do the rulers know about this?’’
The Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government had in 2020 had sent a proposal to the Centre for providing grants in aid for the development of Medical Devices Park at AURIC. The government had regularly pursued with the Centre for the allocation of grants in aid for the project.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who had raised the question in the Rajya Sabha, received a reply from the Union Minister of Chemical and Fertilisers Mansukhani Mandaviya dated September 14. When contacted the state industry department officer refused to comment.
Chaturvedi had tweeted Mandaviya’s reply which said that ‘’The Department had received proposals from 16 states/union territories including the proposal from the Maharashtra Government. After appraisal of 16 proposals, four proposals of the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have been selected and Rs 30 crore has been released to each of the four states as first grain in a bid.’’ Interestingly, Maharashtra was not included.
‘’In my Special Mention in the month of March I had requested for the grant in aid facility from the central government for Maharashtra Medical Devices Park. Received a response from the Hon. Minister and once again Maharashtra has been left out in the decision for grants offered,’’ said Chaturvedi in her tweet.
The MVA government had proposed to develop Medicine Devices Park in 350 acres of area at AURIC Bidkin under the Central scheme of “Promotion of Bulk Drugs parks’ with a development cost of Rs 450 crore. The park was to bring down manufacturing costs of bulk drugs in the country and increase competitiveness in the domestic bulk drug industry.
