HEART OF PUNJAB: Extend industrial corridor till Attari to boost small units, say experts

The announcement of extension of the proposed Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC) to Gaya in the Union Budget has ignited the demand for its extension up to Attari to further pave the way for its connectivity with Central Asia beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan. The corridor covers the Indo-Gangetic plain, known for its fertile land. There is also a demand for the incorporation of agro-industry in the project in a big way.

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Experts say in terms of domestic expansion, the project has limited scope as it already envisages to incorporate Himachal Pradesh’s Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) area with it as the hilly industrial area falls under the corridor’s influence zone.

Attari has an excellent trade facilitation centre, the Integrated Check Post (ICP), which is well connected by road with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Attari also houses an international railway station.

Experts and entrepreneurs have demanded that the domestic project should be turned into an international one by linking it to those which already have global connectivity. Stretching it to Attari will extend its connectivity beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has Iran in its neighbourhood. Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are situated to its north. In the northeast, it shares border with China. All these countries together offer a vast market for farm produce and other goods manufactured in industries spread across the Indo-Gangetic plains in general and Punjab in particular.

The exports of perishables products such as baby corn, snow peas, sugar snap, okra and others vegetables from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to London used to be carried out from Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport. The region that started exporting over 100 tonnes of fresh vegetables in 2006-07 from the Amritsar airport witnessed its volume jumping to 908 tonnes in just three years. But, the exports stopped after a private airline withdrew its direct Amritsar-London flight in 2010. Presently, only basmati grown in Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur is exported through sea ports to London and the Gulf.

Prof Ranjit Singh Ghuman, professor of eminence, Guru Nanak Dev University, says Punjab’s geopolitical position is strategic for India’s national security and every effort must be made by the Union Government to develop this region, including through the expansion of the corridor to Attari so that whenever the Indo-Pak trade is resumed, Punjab and adjoining states could reap its benefits. To benefit Punjab and neighbouring states, agro-based industries and dairy farming must be developed in a big way to enable exports. At present, only a minuscule part of the agriculture produce is being processed in Punjab even as there is a huge scope for the same.

Before its suspension in 2019, the bilateral trade between India and Pakistan through the Attari ICP used to be worth Rs 5,000 crore per year. The same came to a naught when the then Imran Khan-led Pakistan government suspended ties with India to express its anguish over the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. Before 2019, 25 per cent of the total trade between India and Pakistan used to be done through Attari, Prof Ghuman says.

He says the MSMEs in Punjab occupy a central space in the industrial sector, which too must be strengthened so that Punjab gets the benefit of the corridor. “MSMEs are rolling out a variety of products. Earlier, agricultural implements used to be exported to Pakistan which are preferred by Pakistani farmers due to their durability,” he adds.

DPS Kharbanda, CEO, Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotions, says there are a total of 10,28,860 MSME units offering employment to over 56 lakh skilled and unskilled persons. He says the state has a robust MSME sector which can meet the challenge of global demand. A large number of units have state-of-the-art technologies to roll out high quality products, he adds.