CHANDIGARH: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday announced that new industrial policy would be notified positively by January 1, 2009 to ensure level playing field to all the investors and entrepreneurs being the stake holders in the process of development and growth of state's economy. 

Chairing the first joint meeting of Large Industry Development and Infrastructure Development Council held here at CII North headquarters, Badal said that the new industrial policy was being formulated with the recommendations of United Nations Industrial Development Organization UNIDO under the guidance of lead consultant Isher Judge Ahluwalia.  He stated that the draft report would be thoroughly discussed by the members of the infrastructure development council, large industrial board and small industrial board.  Consequently it would be referred to the group of ministers headed by local industry & Commerce Minister and finally would be placed before the council of ministers meeting for approval. 

The Chief Minister asked the captains of the industry who participated in marathon discussion to give their suggestions to put the industry on the fast track of growth.  He directed the Principal Secretary Industries & Commerce SS Channy to formulate small sectoral groups of different industry viz. manufacturing, food processing, sports, cycle & cycle parts and steel & forging to redress their grievances in an effective and result oriented manner. He assured the industrialists that the single window service would be effectively strengthened to provide hassle free approvals and clearances from different quarters for setting up of industrial units within a time frame of 15 days. He categorically said that in ordinate delay in giving clearances to the prospective industrial and entrepreneurs beyond the stipulated schedule would ultimately result in fixing accountability of the concerned functionary.  He also said that in case approval was not granted by the concerned department with in the prescribed time schedule, system of Deemed Approval had been introduced. 

The Chief Minister pointed out that so far 32 mega projects with proposed investment of Rs.32,739 crore had already been sanctioned and 12 projects with investment of about Rs.1500 crore were in pipeline. A new industrial focal point was being developed on about 200 acre of land on Kapurthala-Subhanpur road.
 
Referring to the power scenario in the state,Badal mentioned that in order to make Punjab a power surplus, the state government had taken a major initiative to generate 7400 MW of power in next four to five years.  Besides concrete steps were being taken to tap non-conventional resource of energy viz. bio-mass, hydle and cogeneration and windmill all aggregating to 1500 MW. 

Speaking on the occasion, Industries & Commerce Minister Manoranjan Kalia said that his recent tour to Hyderabad and Bangalore to showcase Punjab's untapped potential for IT industry had proved to be a grand  success.  He said that major IT companies like Micro-soft, Clariant, Infosys etc. had evinced keen interest to set up their units in Punjab.  Given the congenial industrial atmosphere coupled with attractive policy framework there was tremendous scope for attracting IT industry in Punjab from outside.  He said that the state government was in the process of enacting SEZ Act to further facilitate the development of special economic zones in Punjab and IT industry could also be flourished in such SEZs.  He said that for maintaining of infrastructure in industrial focal points through participation of stakeholders, Punjab Common Infrastructure Maintenance Act was being formulated soon. 

Taking part in the deliberations Chairman Fortis,Harpal Singh said that pro-active approach should be adopted to project Punjab as the most favoured investment destination not only in the country but across the globe.  Policies should be liberalized to suit the industry as states had become highly competitive in an era of globalization and liberalization. 

Amarjit Goyal, Chairman Modern Steels opined that land bank should be developed to utilize the barren land for industry.  Shop Act and Weights and Measures Acts which had become now obsolete should be immediately abolished.Suresh Neotia, MD cum Chairman Gujarat Ambuja Ltd. said that keeping in view the tremendous agricultural potential in the state, agro based industry should be promoted in a big way.  He said that in India, agro industry was hardly 2% whereas it was around 60 to 65% in Thailand and Malaysia.  He advocated the revision of change in land use (CLU) charges, EDC, License fee for the housing sector because construction activity was the major driving force for any developed economy. 

B.Mohan Khanna of Khanna Paper Mills highlighted the need to extend the Eastern Route Freight Corridor from Sonnagar (West Bengal) to Attari Wagha Border in Amritsar district instead of Ludhiana to encourage Indo-Pak trade.AK Chaudhary of Mahindra & Mahindra Punjab Tractors said that Punjab government should concentrate on the development of few anchor industries like agro-processing, small scale & large scale engineering, besides giving the highest priority to the sectors of power, infrastructure and policy reforms.  Mr. Onkar Singh of Avon Cycle & Cycle Parts raised the issue of delayed payment of refunds of VAT despite the e-filing introduced by the state government.  He said that 90% of refund should be allowed on the liable amount on the basis of affidavit filed by the indsutrialists. 

Prominent amongst others who were present on the occasion included Chief Secretary RI Singh, Principal Secretary Industries & Commerce SS Channy, MD PSIDC Karan Avtar Singh, MD PIDB Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Excise & Taxation Commissioner A. Veenu Gopal, Director Industries VK Janjua.  Besides Bhupinder Singh Chadha of Azad Group of Companies,Atamjit Bawa of Sarup Tanneries,Satish Bagroaida of Winsome Yarns,Sharwan Gupta of DLF JET and Parminder Singh Sehgat of MGF Emmar Group also participated in the discussions.