Progressive Punjab investors summit: Sukhbir promises start-up fund of Rs 100 cr for young entrepreneurs

Sukhbir said that the state had many advantages that would help attract industry to the state. He pointed to the multi-laned highways, 24-hour power supply, governance reforms, education, health, air connectivity and mechanised agriculture as providing an ideal destination to investors.

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He said Mohali was all set to emerge as an electronic hub with Videocon promising an investment of Rs 500 crore to establish a mobile and set up box manufacturing facility besides announcing that jewellery maker Geetanjali would establish a jewelry park at Amritsar at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. Also, HDFC Bank Private Limited has decided to shift its back-end operations to Mohali. Amritsar would get a world class health facility with the Apollo Group agreeing invest in the state.

Lauding the entrepreneurial acumen of Punjabis settled across the world, Sukhbir invited “born in Punjab” industrialists to invest back home the way Isrealis were investing in their homeland.

Announcing an ambitious scheme on the lines of the western countries, Sukhbir said the government would also tie up with Apollo to conduct health mapping of its citizens.

The Opposition parties, however, were not impressed. Congress leader and former CM Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday asked for the status of the earlier commitments.

“Let the government give details about the Rs 65,000 crores investment commitments made during the previous investors’ summit, most of which remain unfulfilled”, Capt Amarinder said, while expressing serious reservations about the seriousness of these commitments and MOUs signed at the summit.

He observed that the very fact that the entire emphasis of the government was on encouraging youth to go abroad and that too for menial jobs like those of drivers and construction workers speaks volumes about its ability and confidence in generating jobs in the state itself.

“You don’t need to announce that you are training construction labourers for Saudi Arabia in an Investors’ Meet, it simply betrays your weakness and lack of confidence,” Singh remarked. “When the rest of the country was exporting trained scientists, doctors, engineers and IT professionals to countries like the US, the Akalis have reduced Punjab to the level of exporting labourers and drivers to do petty and menial jobs.”

PPCC President Partap Singh Bajwa said Sukhbir is trying to fool people with an “industrial mirage”. He said that more than 20,000 industrial units in the state were shutdown during the present regime.

“Sukhbir lives in his own make believe world and his only commitment is only to himself. While thousands of industrial units in Punjab have closed down during this period, it is only the Badal family that has prospered,” said Bajwa.

CLP leader Sunil Jakhar, welcomed the decision to rate power at Rs 4.99 per unit to new investors for five years but demanded that similar incentives should be given for survival of cotton industries and promotion of fruit grading and waxing units.