Himachal Pradesh to return Centre's Rs 30 cr for medical device park

New Delhi: The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh has returned the Centre's investment of Rs 30 crore in a planned medical device park and decided to develop it from its own resources.

"We will implement the project on terms that are favourable to the state," Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Sukhu told ET. "Had we taken the central investment, it would have meant providing land at Rs 1 per square metre, electricity for Rs 3 per unit and water, maintenance and warehouse facilities free of cost for 10 years."

The park will come up over 265 acres and will need an investment of Rs 350 crore. Sukhu said the state buys electricity at Rs 6 per unit during the winter months from October to March when its hydel projects shut down. "It does not make financial sense for Himachal to provide electricity at Rs 3 to industrialists when it buys at Rs 6 per unit for half the year. This is why we have returned the amount to the Centre - the terms and conditions are not conducive," he said.

The location of the planned medical device park is politically significant. It was planned in Haroli in Una district, which comes under BJP leader Anurag Thakur's Hamirpur parliamentary constituency. But now it will be developed in Baddi in Solan district, which comes under Shimla Lok Sabha constituency. While Hamirpur has been Thakur's stronghold since the 1980s, segments under Shimla Lok Sabha constituency decisively supported the Congress in the 2022 assembly election.