Punjab Government on Monday announced that all new investments in the State would be cleared within 30 days’ time.
This was announced by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal after expressing satisfaction at working of the Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion which had brought down the clearances time for new projects from years to 60 days at present.
In a first of its kind open house discussion with industrialist from across the State, Sukhbir gave a patient hearing to the issues raised by them.
Sukhbir also informed the industrialists gathered on the spot that the Government would pass a proposal to give 100 per cent incentives to existing units in the next cabinet on September 23.
He also made it clear to the investors that any investment which occurred within a year of initiation of a project would be counted as a new project.
Deputy Chief Minister assured the industrialist investing in the sector of food processing that State Government would coordinate with Union Food Processing Ministry to ensure that the subsidy fixed by the Centre for food processing units could be provided to the industry in time.
On the issue that no rules had been framed for expansion of existing units, Sukhbir said that Punjab Government was revising its industrial policy to bring required change to further make it more investment friendly.
He assured the industrialist that all the benefits would be given to them with retrospective effect. During the meeting, some industrialists raised issues regarding delay in clearances from National Highway Authority, Union Ministry of Forest and Central Drug Authority. Responding, Sukhbir assured to personally take up the issues with concerned Ministries.
Sukhbir said that the State Government would take up the issue with the Centre to set up a National Tourism office at Amritsar as the city had a great potential to emerge as a tourism hub.
He also informed that Punjab is all set to launch the tourist travel circuit to increase tourist presence from existing 2.9 lakh to 10 lakh annually.
On the issue of peak load, he said that the Government was open to revise its policy and imposing peak load charges on industry for four moths only instead of the entire year.
He said that being a power surplus State, Punjab has issued tender notice to sell 3,000 MW power in the open market and subsequently, the power tariff would be slashed in the coming year.