Focus on MSMEs at Punjab summit

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, December 4

Skilled and cheap labour, assured land for factories from state-created land banks and fiscal benefits such as refund of the State Goods and Services Tax are some of the incentives that Punjab would showcase as it hosts a two-day investors’ summit from today.

With big guns in food processing sector, new mobility and textiles as well as those running micro small and medium enterprises (that form the backbone of Punjab’s industrial sector) all set to attend the Progressive Punjab Summit, the Capt Amarinder Singh government is hopeful of taking a big leap to propel the state’s industrial growth. The focus during the summit will be on MSMEs, especially after the state announced its ‘Make in Punjab’ policy. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder would himself participate in an interactive session on Thursday to put the MSME sector on centre-stage. 

While the government announced giving panchayat land to industry for setting up industrial projects earlier this week, two other major amendments were okayed today to woo the industry. These include making industrial disputes time-barred (no dispute will be entertained beyond three years) and increasing the ceiling of employees from 100 to 300 in any industry that wants to close down without involving the state government’s labour department. 

“We had several rounds of meetings with industry captains. It is based on their feedback that these changes in rules have been made. These relaxations will make Punjab a perfect place for investment,” said Vini Mahajan, Additional Chief Secretary, Industry and Investment Promotion.

Mahajan said the Punjab summit would differ from other states as it would not focus on any investment-based MoUs.

The government claimed that despite slowdown, Punjab had delivered strong numbers in industrial investment and growth. “In last two years, Punjab attracted investment worth over Rs 50,000 crore. Though the largest investment (Rs 22,711 crore) has been made by HMEL, we have got Rs 8,300 crore in manufacturing and light engineering, Rs 5,700 crore in education and over Rs 3,500 crore in agro and food processing,” said Rajat Aggarwal, CEO, Invest Punjab. 

Aggarwal said the fact that Punjab had seen 18 per cent increase in new power connections and 26 per cent rise in total power consumption (over last year) showed that the state’s secondary sector was “robust and growing”. 

2-day meet from today

• Agro-food processing, textiles, new mobility, start-ups identified for seeking investment
• Focus on four nations — UK, Germany, Japan and UAE —for potential collaborations 
• Big guns such as PRS Oberoi, Sanjiv Puri, Prakash Hinduja, Sunil Kant Munjal and Suchita Jain expected to attend