Trichy: Even as seven months have passed since Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation (Sidco) obtained the enter-upon permission to establish a trade centre at Panchapur, neither the civil works have been taken up nor the special purpose vehicle (SPV) constituted. The snail’s pace of the trade centre works has been attributed to the inordinate delay by Sidco in inviting entrepreneurs here to form the SPV.The state government budget in 2017-18 had envisaged setting up trade convention centres at Madurai, Salem and Trichy districts. The Trichy District Tiny and Small Scale Industries Association (Tiditssia), a consortium of MSMEs here, suggested to the district administration to sanction the 9.42 acres of government poromboke land available at Panchapur adjacent to Trichy-Madurai NH. With the Sidco okaying the site and assuring to pay land cost estimated at Rs 1.63 crore to the revenue department, it received enter-upon permission in February this year.Though Sidco marked the boundaries and fenced the available land at Panchapur, civil works for the centre have not been initiated yet. Ahead of starting the civil works, entrepreneurs said that SPV formation was mandatory to raise Rs 6 crore funds as contribution from micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSME) in establishing the trade centre. “We have not received any communication from Sidco inviting us to form SPV comprising entrepreneurs. We have urged the nodal agency to take necessary steps at the earliest for constituting SPV so that we can prepare pooling capital,” said N Kanagasabapathy, president, Tiditssia.Tiditssia with as many as 2,000 members, of which 550 are active, said that entrepreneurs have planned to contribute Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh on an average to generate the Rs 6 crore fund. Besides this, the state government’s Rs 5 crore grant will also be utilised for constructing the trade centre on about 1 lakh square feet. With Trichy being selected as one of the cities in the central government’s defence corridor proposal to encourage manufacture of indigenous defence equipment, the presence of a trade centre was touted to play a catalyst role in conducting exhibitions and skill developments sessions.“We have completed the formalities to settle the land cost with the district administration. Once the revenue department acknowledges the receipt of our payment, measures for forming SPV will be expedited,” an official source with Sidco said. However, the nodal agency has not specified the tentative time before which SPV would become reality.

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