Jalandhar: IT and Agro-based industry will be the main thrust areas of the Punjab Industrial Policy, the final draft of which will be finalised soon, state Industry Minister Manoranjan Kalia said on Saturday.

He said the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, a nodal agency which was assigned to give its suggestions for the policy, has already given its presentation to the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the final draft of the upcoming policy would be finalised soon.

"In the upcoming Industrial Policy, which will be implemented from January 1, 2009, main thrust will be given to attract more and more IT and agro-based industrial plants in the state," the minister told reporters here.

He added that after Mohali, which has already emerged as Knowledge City of the state, Jalandhar would also be developed as IT Industrial hub.

In the recently held meeting with the representatives of IT Industry it was noticed that they were more interested to install their units in Jalandhar due to availability of unconsumed IT human resources and the state government was considering to provide IT units an uninterrupted power supply and IT conducive environment in Jalandhar.

Regarding the industrial status of the state, the minister said that at present there were 2,006,490 SSI units in the state with an investment of Rs 5,820 crore and 614 of units of medium scale industrial units with an investment of 25,549 crore.

As far as status of export from Punjab was concerned, in the financial year 2004-05 it was Rs 7,914.34 crore, in 2005-06 it was Rs 9,655 crore and in the previous fiscal export figure from Punjab was 11,797 crore, Kalia said revealing that in the current financial year, export figure of export from Punjab was more than Rs 14,000 crore.