Baddi, Asia’s largest pharma hub, is a sweet dream gone sour

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Baddi, Sep 6: A contour map of the Baddi belt shows just a series of undifferentiated blocks in a wide strip of land just off the foothills of the Himalayas. Closer home as one drives up to the most-discussed industrial belt just 40 km from Chandigarh, those blocks metamorphose into factories, mostly pharma but also manufacturing and IT. The most striking aspect, however, is the absence of any reasonably pucca road in the entire belt.

The Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt is the classic example of a sweet dream gone sour. It was brought into being by a massive tax incentive package in 2003, but successive governments at Shimla have only concentrated on ensuring that the tax holiday is extended beyond 2010 without bothering to develop the zone. The area has adequate power, a rarity in India, peaceful industrial climate and is close to the rich hinterland of Delhi, Chandigarh and Amritsar. But thanks to two decades of inaction—the first units set up shop here in 1991- the zone, which has become Asia’s largest pharmaceutical hub, could wither away as soon as the tax holiday goes.

Lack of infrastructure and haphazard industrial development in this town, located in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh, has given nightmares to investors and locals alike. Companies such as Omaxe, Amaravati, Shakun Infrastructure, Suncity projects are striving hard to find buyers for their housing complexes. An official from Omaxe Construction says, “We are constructing about 720 flats in Baddi. Though the bookings are on but the response is yet to pick up.”

The lackadaisical approach of the three state governments of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh towards improvement of the inter-state connectivity has been an impediment in trade expansion by the industrial units.

Unlike Dubai or Sharjah, this belt has earned the dubious distinction of making industry captains come out on the roads to demand roads, housing for their workers and even hospitals before the employees did so.

Rajender Guleria, president, Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh Industries Association (BBNIA), says only an ESIC hospital is coming up in the region for the factory workers and no big private hospital group is setting foot in Baddi.