Punjab Government will impress upon the Centre to review fiscal sops granted to the neighbouring States, including Himachal Pradesh, saying that tax holidays to these States had proved “detrimental” to the growth of industry in Punjab.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, while addressing mediapersons on the last leg of his two-day Sangat Darshan program in Talwandi Sabo Assembly constituency on Friday, also announced that Punjab would seek special package for the State's industrial sector from the Centre.
Punjab had termed the move of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government to extend the tax holiday for industry in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand till March 2017 in January this year as “discriminatory”. Badal had said that Punjab was losing out on industrial investment due to tax concessions given to neighbouring States.
Punjab being a land-locked State, along an active and hostile international border with Pakistan, has been demanding tax concessions for the State's industry.
Scores of industrial units in the State have shifted base to hill States like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand due to massive tax holidays offered there. In the past nearly two decades, no major industrial investment has taken place in Punjab.
Defending the under-attack performance of the BJP led NDA Government at the Centre, Badal said that it has been only three months since the new Government took over the reins of country, and it “is busy putting the nation back on track of development where the Congress had miserably failed”.
On the State’s skill development initiative, Badal said that there was urgent need to set up skill development centres so that young people could be absorbed by the industry.
Badal, talking about the State Government's ambitious project of ensuring better child care and development, said that Government was introducing at least one anganwari in each village.
He said that the officers have been asked to provide funds for setting up anganwari in all nearly 13,000 villages of the State so that every child gets proper nutrition and care.
Badal also directed the State officials to ensure that the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana was successfully implemented. He directed the State Government officials to ensure that the bank account of each resident of Punjab is opened within a month's time so that no one is bereft of the benefit the ambitious central scheme.