We didn't ask banks not to grant loans to businesses without NOC: HSIIDC

Times of India: Gurgaon: Monday, June 03, 2013.

Brushing aside concerns raised by the local association earlier this month, the industry developer, HSIIDC, has denied having ever issued instructions to banks for not granting financial loans to businesses without official NOCs. There were suspicions that the corporation had made such a move in order to stymie the loaning process for industrialists, and as one industry owner put it, 'to re-position itself in the financial services sector.'

The HSIIDC's statement arrived in the form of an RTI response to a query filed by a local industrialist, asking whether the corporation had written letters to local bank heads demanding that loan applications without proper NOCs be denied. "It is to inform you that this office is not aware of any such letter issued by the Chamber of Industries, Gurgaon to all banks. As far as HSIIDC is concerned, no letter was issued to any bank for not granting loans to the entrepreneurs without obtaining NOC from HSIIDC," the RTI response says.

But many in Udyog Vihar are still not convinced by the HSIIDC's attempts to set the record straight. Industry owner and activist Aseem Takyar, who had filed the RTI application dated May 5, believes that there is more to the issue. "There is a provision in the RTI laws to get the authorities to file affidavits. I will be filing an application to make the HSIIDC issue an affidavit saying they haven't written to banks about this matter," he said.

An RTI denial, according to Takyar, is hardly enough to rest the case. "I don't think there would be such a hue and cry in the area if the banks weren't really denying loans at HSIIDC's behest. And if this is, as HSIIDC says, just a rumour, why don't they issue a public notice saying so?" he said.

According to previous reports, the Chamber of Industries of Udyog Vihar had accused the HSIIDC to have 'misled the banks' while projecting 'itself as a financial institution for giving loans.'

"I had heard reports of one industrialist being denied a loan not because the HSIIDC had written to the bank, but because the industrialist's conveyance deed said that no loans are to be granted without official NOCs. Now my conveyance deed doesn't say such a thing. But we still have to get to the bottom of this issue and find out what's really happening," said H R Vaish, president of the chambers.