Punjab wakes up to dormant investment proposals

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 13

The Punjab government has asked babus to pull up their socks and allocate responsibility of district-level officials to follow up individual investment proposals to fructify projects worth Rs 90,000 crore that were committed by investors since April 2017.

The state has asked officials to reach out to the investors and hand-hold them so that their proposed projects would be implemented expeditiously, officials said. 

The government has taken a serious approach this time seeing lackadaisical approach towards proposals pending from the previous regime. The previous government had signed various industrial MoUs worth Rs 1,80,000 crore, out of which only 30% of the total investments could materialise so far, officials in the Industries Department said. These commitments were made during previous two editions of the ‘Progressive Punjab Investors Summit’ held in 2013 and 2015.

“Since the launch of the Industrial Policy in November last year we have signed over 200 MoUs with industries totaling Rs 49,090 crore,” said DPS Kharbanda, Director Industries and Commerce, Punjab. Before November last, the current government had signed MoUs worth around Rs 41,000 crore.

Kharbanda said the MoUs have been segregated district-wise where the industry wish to invest and the general managers at district headquarters have been directed to hand-hold investors on regular basis.

“All promised investment will go in vain if not implemented efficiently,” he said. The department has set up an online system to track progress of each project on real-time basis, he added.

The current government is also keen to implement projects proposed during the previous government, sources said. The Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion is following up investment proposals of the previous regime.

An investor who had signed an MoU with the state government last year for setting up a renewable energy project is still struggling to sign a power purchase agreement with the state power utility. Several others are facing problems due to non-availability of suitable land at an economical rate. Investors said precarious fiscal health of the state government is also one of the stumbling blocks in attracting investments.

In the first investor summit in 2013 organised by the SAD-BJP government, the state government had signed MoUs worth Rs 67,000 crore. The second edition of the event in 2015 had garnered MoUs worth Rs 1.13 lakh crore. Officials said a total of 519 MoUs had been signed at the two summits.