COURTESY TOI AUG 1

We have to improve our R&D to compete with Chinese products’
Deputy chief minister and head of BJP’s alliance partner JJP, Dushyant Chautalaalso finds himself in the engine room for Haryana’s post-lockdown economic revival as minister for commerce and industry, labour and employment, as well as excise and taxation, among others. Excerpts from a conversation with Bagish Jha & Shubhra Pant

The state’s finances have taken a battering. Excise, a major revenue source, has also been hit. Have you seen any recovery?

Revenue collection is better and even GST collection from the prime districts has improved. It is obviously not more than the last year because sales are low, but revenue collection has improved. Efficiency of ETO (excise and taxation department) has improved and it has led to increased tax collection from big defaulters. There were 18 big tax defaulters who had not paid for the last three months. We issued notices and collected pending dues. The crisis has helped improve tax collections from defaulters. Besides, for the first time in the history of the state, we had to add an additional quota twice after announcement of the state excise policy. There are only three zones which have not been auctioned, two in Sonipat — because they fall under industrial and university areas — and one in Gurgaon. Tourism department is running some liquor vends in Gurgaon. Their collection is better than other vends. People have more faith in the liquor vends operated by a government agency.

Restaurants, pubs, bars and microbreweries are a major revenue source for the government. But many of these establishments are on the verge of closure now. Have you thought of giving them relaxations?

Only L4 and L5 licence- holders at hotels are allowed, while pubs, bars and microbreweries are still closed. Even in Unlock 3, they are not allowed to operate. But as and when the Union government will come up with guidelines for restarting such places, the state government will prepare a relief package. Licence fee will be cut after taking approval from the cabinet. It is not clear for how long they will remain closed. It is too early to say.

There are many Chinese companies that operate from Gurgaon and Haryana in key sectors. Will tensions with China have an impact on this? There are also growing calls to stop using Chinese products…

Can you live without a lithium-operated mobile phone? More than 90% of lithium batteries come from China. We cannot stop Chinese products in one go, we will have to improve our R&D to compete with them. Their prices and quality are better, and in this competitive market, we will have to outperform them with the help of better R&D. For this, the Rs 4 lakhcrore Atmanirbhar package will be of great help. We are hoping to get at least Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore out of this package for Haryana.

Your govt recently stopped land registry after unearthing large-scale irregularities at tehshil offices in different districts. What action are you taking?

There were some irregularities in registry and also in the sale of liquor from police malkhana. There were irregularities in collection of paddy too. Haryana is the only state to have physical verification of paddy collection thrice, and now it has been streamlined. In the revenue department, irregularities in the registry came to my notice during the course of the pandemic wherein the registry was executed in a “controlled area”. Multiple NOCs are required for the execution of registry in controlled areas and officials misused their power taking advantage of the loopholes in the system. We collected the data and details of multiple revenue officials who were instrumental in this with help of officials from other departments. An inquiry is under way and strict action will be taken.

Irregularities have been highlighted in departments under your preview…

Thank you for saying this! It means I’m working effectively. Had I hidden them and tried to save people involved in wrongdoing, I would have been at fault. If I am proactively trying to catch anything that is wrong and trying to tell people that everything that is wrong needs to be stopped, then I am right and that is my agenda. If I wanted to hide, then I would have stopped files from Day One.

Coming back to the economy, which are the sectors you are working to strengthen in the state?

The four sectors where we want more industrial development are aviation, pharmaceuticals, IT and automobile. There is a lot of scope in the aviation sector given that there isn’t a single simulator. We could set up one in the state which will bring a lot of development and employment. Seattle in the United States is a great example of how the aviation industry can transform a city or a region. We have spoken about the prospects to both Airbus and Boeing. A simulator can be developed in Hisar, which is strategically located for the industry.