After working out the mechanism for bringing new industrial units to the State and giving a new lease of life to the existing ones, the Punjab Government on Thursday notified its much-awaited Industrial Policy, after announcing the same six months back.
It offers huge incentives for setting up new industrial units, and for expansion of the existing ones.
The Industrial Policy, notified on Thursday, is in line with the fiscal incentives announced for the industrial promotion in the state in June.
The financial incentives announced in the policy includes retention of value added tax (VAT) and central sales tax (CST), “cent per cent” exemption on electricity duty, stamp duty, property tax in urban areas, along with market fee, luxury tax, mandi fee, rural development fund (RDF), and infrastructure development (ID) cess on purchase of cotton. Besides, the policy also assured faster clearance to the projects.
The policy — biggest ever incentive package for industry — has been aimed at generating employment by attracting huge investment in the state, to facilitating business.
The incentives have been offered to all sectors — ranging from manufacturing, to integrated textile units, agro and food processing sector, electronics hardware and intonation technology industry, tourism sector, and the health sector — after exhaustive discussions with all stakeholders including industrial associations, entrepreneurs and concerned government departments.
“The world class infrastructure has been established by the SAD-BJP government in Punjab, and now this policy enriched with incentives would change the industrial scenario in the state,” said Industries and Commerce Minister Madan Mohan Mittal.
He said that the state has suffered because of decade-long militancy period and “negative propaganda” regarding poor law and order situation and labour problem in the state.
“There is no law and order issue here anymore. Further, the people here are hardworking and have high work output. We cleared these misconceptions during our various visits, and considering the kind of infrastructure we have, the policy would rebuild and restructure the state in the right direction,” he added.
DIVISION IN ZONES DEPENDING ON DEVElOPMENT
The state has been divided into two zones — developed and lesser-developed areas to ensure “equal development” across the state, providing higher incentives for industrially less developed districts like border area as compared to relatively more developed districts.
The policy has offered maximum fiscal incentives to the areas falling in zone-I, that is less developed, including Fazilka, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Sangrur, Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, Faridkot, Tarn Taran, and Amritsar to speed up industrial development there.
All the approved industrial parks, industrial focal points, and industrial estates in all districts of the state come under zone I.
Zone-II covers the districts of Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, ludhiana, Moga, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr), Rupnagar and Ajitgarh (Mohali).
In both zones, the policy offered fiscal incentives for seven to 13 years, depending upon the scale of investments.
MOHAlI, AMRITSAR AS IT HUBS
Mohali and Amritsar have been identified to be developed as “next” IT hubs. State provided high incentives to IT sector, with 100 per cent VAT exemption, 100 per cent assured power supply, land at subsidized rates, among others.
24X7 POWER AVAIlABIlITY
“The main requirement for industry is power, and on December 8, the state would be declared as power surplus with the commissioning of Rajpura Thermal Power Plant,” said Mittal.
TIWARI PBIP’s CEO
Mittal said that Power Secretary Anirudh Tiwari has been appointed as chief executive officer (CEO) of the newly set up Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion (PBIP) — an apex body for all industrial issues to provide hassle-free clearances and approvals for setting up of new industries under one roof through ‘single window’ system.