India Cements Vice-Chairman and Managing Director N Srinivasan has rued that it takes two or three years for a project to set up and said the industry was forced to run with its "legs and arms tied behind".
"There are fresh challenges. The licensing committee has gone, but the environment committee has come. If one wants to set up a project, it takes two or three years (to begin operations)," he said at a function.
"They (industry) have to get environmental clearances and they have to reckon with the huge cost of land," he said at the 'Chamber Day' of Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry last night.
"Today, it is so difficult to run an industry when the doors are open to anyone wanting to set up a project. Indian industry is forced to run a race with legs and arms tied behind", he said.
"The resilience and fighting spirit of an entrepreneur is something to be seen to believed. The manufacturing sector must be saluted for operating in difficult times", he said.
Noting that manufacturing sector was "competitive", he said it was easy to to say one must be cost competitive. "But do we have a level playing field on the taxes front?".
Indian industry is facing huge burden of indirect taxes, high cost of money and interest costs, he added.
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