The State government plans to take steps to rejuvenate the Mysore Paper Mills and run it as a public sector undertaking as in the past, M.B. Patil, Minister for Major and Medium Industries, said in the council on Tuesday.
Responding a question by S. Rudre Gowda, Mr. Patil said that efforts to privatise the factory had failed three times in the past as the bidders did not show interest. “One of the reasons is that they are not at liberty to grow eucalyptus trees that serve as the raw materials for paper making. Now, the option before us is to run it as in the past, after relaxing some norms about plantations and resolving some pending disputes and other problems,’‘ he said.
“The accumulated losses of MPM are around ₹1,482 crore and they are growing. Of these are over ₹200 crore of ESCOM arrears and bank loans and government arrears. We will have to clear all of them if we are to run it on our own,” he said.
Mr. Gowda said that the government could either grow improved varieties of eucalyptus that consumed lesser water or privatise the factory, by including the factory along with the 2,000 hectares of land that the company owns.
Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme
The government has revised the Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme to provide free treatment for 2,128 medical procedures including 1,650 surgeries and 478 ICU treatment procedures, Cooperation Minister K.N. Rajanna said in the council on Tuesday.
He said the beneficiaries could visit any of the 616 hospitals to get treated. As many as 48 lakh beneficiaries have enrolled in the scheme. As many as 48,000 patients have benefited from the scheme and have availed procedures worth ₹80 crore.
The government has fixed uniform rates for all procedures in all kinds of hospitals. It has no proposal for declaring differential rates for various types of hospitals. The rates fixed are those prescribed in the Ayushman Bharat scheme. However , if these are found to be less than the old rates fixed by the State government, the higher rates will prevail, he said.
International apparel park
The State government will take appropriate steps to ensure that the international apparel park sanctioned in Kalaburagi district will start functioning as soon as possible.
The park will take Union government assistance under the PM MITRA park scheme. “We requested the State government to transfer 1,000 acres of land that was acquired for a solar park in three villages of Kiranagi, Nadisinnur and Firozabad of Kalaburagi district. Once the land is transferred, we will start work on the park. Investors will be invited to start their units here. They will be encouraged to export. A single value chain will reduce the cost as common facilities will be set up. Around 10,000 crore of investment in this park being set up in PPP mode,” Textile Minister Shivanand Patil said.
A special purpose vehicle has been formed for the project.
