Industrialist vows Rs 2K-cr investment in Punjab

Debunking the claims of shifting all his investments outside Punjab, mainly to Madhya Pradesh, Punjab’s eminent industrialist-turned Rajya Sabha MP Rajinder Gupta today announced a new brownfield expansion of Rs 2,000-crore in his Barnala unit.

The Trident Group, having a market cap of Rs 18,000 crore, will be spending Rs 1,500 crore for the expansion of its terry towel and paper modernisation unit at Barnala, and another Rs 500 crore for the creation of a capacity building centre in Mohali. This expansion is expected to lead to employment generation for 2000 persons, and the project is expected to take off in 15 months.

“It’s not that I stopped investing in Punjab. I merely expanded my business in Madhya Pradesh, where I set up a new unit. In Punjab, the Trident Group has invested about Rs 1000 crore in the the past decade as part of the expansion of the two units in Bathinda,” he told The Tribune here today, adding that after several years, he had seen an environment that was conducive to industrial investors.

Gupta said that the industrial policy of Madhya Pradesh was lucrative when he decided to set up another unit in Budhni. “But it would be wrong to say that I was leaving Punjab. I have such a strong connect with the state, being a born Punjabi and having got everything from here. In fact, the reason I joined politics is only to serve Punjab and its people,” he said.

Interestingly, the Trident Group is one of the rare industries that has majority of workforce as women.

‘State preferred destination’

Punjab Industry Minister Sanjeev Arora, who announced the Trident Group plan for further expansion in Punjab, said that this announcement proved investor confidence in Punjab. “Since 2022, after AAP came to power, the state has received Common Application Forms (CAFs) for Rs 1.40 lakh crore investment. The CAF is filed after land is acquired and when the project construction is to begin. These are not MoUs, but actual investments that are promised in the state. Punjab continues to be a preferred investment destination, with steel manufacturing industry giving the state a big thumbs up, mainly because of cheap power,their main raw material,” he said.