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

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...

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