PM Modi revives 'plug and play' model to attract investment

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 30

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today, held a comprehensive meeting to discuss strategies to attract more foreign investments into India as well as to promote local investments in order to give a boost to the economy against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Prime Minister sought to revive the proposal for a “plug and play” approach that was first tried out with five ultra-mega power plants almost five years back, none of which have come up.

Prime Minister Modi held deliberations on the economy on the day industrial output of eight core infrastructure industries shrank by 6.5 per cent in March. This trend has ominous portends for April, which was a full lockdown month as compared to March when complete disruption had taken place for just over a week.

Figures released by the Central Government said the fall was precipitated by poor performance of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity sectors.

A press release from the Prime Minister’s Office said PM Modi discussed the development of a scheme that promotes more “plug and play” infrastructure in the existing industrial lands along with necessary financing support.

The Modi government had first aired the plug-and-play scheme when Arun Jaitley presented the Budget in 2015. The PM’s renewed call today for developing a new scheme suggests it has not made much headway in the past five years. Under this concept, all regulatory clearances will be put in place before the project is awarded to private developers through an auction.

The Prime Minister also wanted a more proactive approach to handhold investors, to look into their problems and help them in getting all necessary Central and state clearances in a time-bound manner.

The Prime Minster indicated that the disruption caused by Covid-19 should not derail or delay any of the reform initiatives being undertaken by the Central Ministries. He also pressed for time-bound action to remove obstacles that may impede promotion of investment and industrial growth.

The meeting, attended by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister for Commerce and Industries Piyush Goel and MoS (Finance) Anurag Thakur, along with senior government officials, also discussed various approaches to quickly bring investments into India and to promote indigenous industries.

A photo released by the PMO showed the Ministers and officials observing social distancing while the PM addressed them.

The deliberations also took up the issue of states grappling with the problem of slow industrial growth and the complex issue of gradually emerging from the lockdown. The PM spoke on the Centre guiding states to evolve their strategies and be more proactive in attracting investments.