Demand for revival of Agra footwear park
Vishal Sharma
New Delhi/ Agra. Following the abrupt shutdown of the Agra Footwear Components Park project, due to the non-availability of land and the withdrawal of central government grant, the local footwear industry has now raised the demand of this project being revived in the Eleventh Five-Year plan to enable the Agra footwear industry to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
According to the industry sources, the footwear components park had been approved by the central government on a conceptual level but it could not be started due to the non-availability of adequate land on the Agra-Delhi highway, which had been targeted as the area for the development of this project.
Talking to Business Standard, Puran Dawar, local footwear exporter and Managing Director, Agra Footwear Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. which had been designated as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the footwear park project, said that a delegation of the footwear industrialists of Agra said that a delegation of local footwear industrialists had recently met the Union Minister for Commerce and Industries Kamalnath and raised the issue of virtually negligible FDI in the Agra footwear industry.
He said that the footwear exporters laid special stress on the Footwear Components Park project that had been shelved by the central government as the project had been designed around permission for attracting upto 100 per cent FDI and the Italian footwear industry had agreed to setup a special footwear design lab in the park, though the project never materialized, turning away the prospective foreign investors and the funding lapsed due to non-utilisation.
Now, he said, if the footwear industry of the country had to achieve the target of footwear exports worth four billion US Dollars in the 11th Five-Year plan, attracting FDI was the only option left as though the local industrialists were brimming business acumen, they lagged behind in technological advantages over their competitors who excelled in global benchmarking and brand promotion.
According to the industry sources, the footwear components park had been approved by the central government on a conceptual level but it could not be started due to the non-availability of adequate land on the Agra-Delhi highway, which had been targeted as the area for the development of this project.
Talking to Business Standard, Puran Dawar, local footwear exporter and Managing Director, Agra Footwear Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. which had been designated as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the footwear park project, said that a delegation of the footwear industrialists of Agra said that a delegation of local footwear industrialists had recently met the Union Minister for Commerce and Industries Kamalnath and raised the issue of virtually negligible FDI in the Agra footwear industry.
He said that the footwear exporters laid special stress on the Footwear Components Park project that had been shelved by the central government as the project had been designed around permission for attracting upto 100 per cent FDI and the Italian footwear industry had agreed to setup a special footwear design lab in the park, though the project never materialized, turning away the prospective foreign investors and the funding lapsed due to non-utilisation.
Now, he said, if the footwear industry of the country had to achieve the target of footwear exports worth four billion US Dollars in the 11th Five-Year plan, attracting FDI was the only option left as though the local industrialists were brimming business acumen, they lagged behind in technological advantages over their competitors who excelled in global benchmarking and brand promotion.
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