Chief Minister Harish Rawat said that Uttarakhand has now emerged as a conducive State for investment. “We have created it through relentless efforts. Now things are bearing fruits. The State ranked 23rd in terms of investment around ten months back. Now we are the first in ‘Ease of doing business’ category. I am happy to say that things have been so for the past two weeks,” a beaming CM said on Friday while addressing the mediapersons in Dehradun.
“Election is coming, but I am sure we would continue to maintain the status in the coming days as well,” he averred.
Ascribing the positive investment surge for the State to the application of single window system, Harish Rawat said they have put into place such a mechanism that is extremely investment friendly. “The investors would hardly face any hassle in investment, thanks to the mechanism we have set into motion. To ensure proper execution of the single window system, we have roped in different departments like forest, industry and electricity to make sure that the investors get all kind of assistance from all the quarters concerned,” CM said.
“We are in the process of making structural changes in several departments like urban, revenue, law and labour so as to ensure that the entrepreneurs would get lands for investment easily. Things are really favourable with the State having trained manpower, good law and order situation and power availability. It is thus high time for the investors to zero in on the State for investment,” he added.
latching the youth to the industrialisation spree, CM said they are now engaged in training the youth. “We are keeping all options open. Even if the entrepreneurs do not come as expected the trained youths would establish units themselves, giving others jobs in the process. This amounts to implementing the start-up programme on part of the State Government,” he said.
He added that despite financial crisis the State is staring at, he has conducted quick survey and found that State GDP would go up to a whopping 14 per cent this financial year.
Dwelling on the construction of roads, the CM said the State was on the cusp of making history. “We would start constructing over 500 roads at a time. If this happens, the State will surge ahead of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh by 2018-19,” Harish Rawat said.
Taking up the gauntlet thrown by the State BJP president Ajay Bhatt who said the CM should interact with the common people in open public forums on his alleged involvement in the sting CD episode, Harish Rawat said he was ready. “I would love to participate in such programmes to make a clean breast of things. If any channel comes forward I would love to participate. The people would then understand how things happened,” he said.
Referring to the corruption charges being levelled by the Opposition, the CM said in case the CBI does not continue to go for witch-hunting, singling him out, his Government was ready to accept an Opposition-sponsored notice in the Vidhan Sabha for impartial probe into all the scams that are supposed to have befallen the State since 2007. The list is large - Citurgia, Kumbha Mela and hydro power scams. We are ready to recommend CBI or any other enquiry if the Centre stops witch-hunting in the name of investigation,” CM said, adding sarcastically that everybody knew who was playing the sarangi during the BJP regime.