Jharkhand to become India’s ‘auto component hub’

Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda said on Monday that his government has a long-term plan to make the state the country’s “auto component hub.”
This would be possible by promoting small scale industries that could produce auto components of all kinds of vehicles across the globe, he said.

The Jharkhand government, he said was also focusing on the development of infrastructure in the state and planning to create a ‘Vehicle Bank’ for the purpose.

Inaugurating a state-of-the-art production facility at Jamshedpur for the NOVUS range of world-class heavy-duty vehicles here today, Munda announced that his government would give a sales tax rebate to private investors willing to invest above Rs 300 crore for the bulk purchase of heavy vehicles.

Though the Jharkhand government was focusing on the development of infrastructure, including improving roads, but the completion of the projects were failing to meet the time frame owing to lack of transportation facilities, he said.

Elaborating on ‘Vehicle Bank’, Munda said the motive behind creating Vehicle Bank was to facilitate investors working for the development of infrastructure with vehicles on lease to transport their equipment.

Assuring to charge two per cent sale tax on purchase of heavy vehicle in bulk quantity worth above Rs 300 crore, Munda said the government would encourage such investors to create ‘vehicle bank’ so that the investors could lease out their vehicles to the contractors working in the infrastructure sector, so that they could utilise the vehicles in development work.

This, he said would help the completion of projects within the time frame, he said.