Industries department in Punjab is all set for major reforms as Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister today set the ball rolling for making state no. 1 investment destination. Reviewing the implementation of Administrative Reforms in a high level meeting to make Industries department investor friendly, Mr. Badal said that after upgrading the infrastructure of the state, it was imperative for Industry Department to remove all bottlenecks coming in the way of investors’ investing in Punjab. The Deputy Chief Minister, who is also holding the newly created portfolio of Investment Promotion constituted a Reforms Committee under Dr. Parmod Kumar that would submit its report within 30 days suggesting reforms in the Industry Department. Mr. Badal said that his endeavor was to make Punjab as most investor friendly state and set-up single window service in its true spirit. He said that if industries department does not receive clearance from any department, it would be deemed approved.
Emphasizing the need for creating a Land Bank, Mr. Badal said that the experiment of other states offering land to the industrial houses ‘off shelf’ has been very successful as no industrial house wants to get entangled in land acquisition disputes. He said that it was the prime duty of the State Government to provide land clear of all hindrances to the investors with all the clearances including Pollution Clearance, Forest NOC, Power Connection, NOC from Labour Department etc. to the investors so that they would immediately go ahead with the setting up of project.
Asking the department to study the concept of Industrial Estates threadbare, Mr.Badal said that department should come out with the workable proposal for promotion of industry in the state. Stressing the need of a regular monthly meeting of ‘Empowered Committee and Project Approval Board’, Mr. Badal said that it was the duty of the department to ensure that these meeting do take place every month. He said that performance of Secretary and Director of Industry Department would be gauged from the fact that how much investment they could attract with their efforts.
Punjab Industries Minister Anil Joshi gave out a briefing of pending investment proposals and steps taken by the department to attract investments in the state.
Prominent amongst those who were present in the meeting included Rakesh Singh,Chief Secretary,S.C. Agrawal, Chairman Right to Service Commission, Dr. Parmod Kumar, Chairman Governance Reforms Commission, Karan A. Singh, Principal Secretary Science and Technology, S.K. Sandhu, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, P.S. Aujla, Principal Secretary to Deputy Chief Minister and S.S. Bains, Director Industries.