Punjab gears up to energise investors’ sentiment

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 20

Punjab has roped in the Central government’s e-governance backbone — the National Informatics Centre (NIC) — to improve its “Ease of doing business” ranking and consulting management experts for adapting global best practices to woo investors.

NIC has already created beta version of “Business First” portal for the purpose and the same would be formally launched soon which investors can access for submission of proposals, queries and approvals.

“The ease of doing business ranking for 2017 is a reminder to get our acts together. We are already in the transformation mode and plan to be in the top five states in the country in three years by introducing several reforms,” Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Rakesh Kumar Verma told The Tribune.

The state has been ranked 20th in the latest report of the ease of doing business, which is jointly conducted by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the World Bank. 

The “Business First” portal will strengthen delivery of services to investors, Verma said. Currently, the portal is being improved on the basis of industry feedbacks. The plan is to make all interaction through the portal so that investors can submit applications and get approvals online, he said.

“The Department is also in the process of empanelling certified business facilitators through Punjab InfoTech, who will be trained and certified to impart services through the portal. These facilitators will assist investors,” he said.

He said the department has identified a core team at Chandigarh, which will work full time for ease of doing business and will be supported by a team of consultants.

The state government is also planning to re-engineer the process of seven core departments on priority — industry, power, pollution control, labour, local department, taxation and housing and urban development — to make them extremely simple, industry-friendly and completely digital.

The state is making every effort to attract investors, a government spokesperson said. A statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office said the state has received 161 investment proposals worth Rs 8,644 crore from April 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. The first quarter of FY 2018-19 alone had received 45 proposals with an investment of Rs 3,112 crore. The figure for FY2017-18 stood at 116 at a total project cost of Rs 5,532 crore, it said. These investments are mainly from manufacturing, agri & food processing, tourism, infrastructure, education, IT/ITeS, health & biosciences sectors. The current government has signed a total of 170 investment MoUs worth Rs 47,116 crore between July 2017 and July 2018 during several business meets. The state had received 157 applications for Rs 8,500 crore between July 2016 and July 2017.