Eye on Punjab industry hub bypoll, AAP, BJP find common ground: wooing business class

The Minister also invited the industry bodies to Delhi for meetings with the Commerce Ministry over their concerns.

A day after Singh’s visit, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal arrived in Ludhiana Monday and held public rallies before meeting a group of industrialists. Both AAP leaders asserted that they are “pro-industry and strongly believe that employment and revenue are generated if Punjab’s industry flourishes”.

Sources said Kejriwal asked the businessmen to suggest a new industry-friendly policy and assured them of implementing it as the existing one, formulated in 2022, is yet to see the light of day.

The upcoming Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll – necessitated after sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi “accidentally” shot himself to death in January – has turned into a prestige battle for the party, especially after its Delhi Assembly poll debacle, where Kejriwal and other senior leaders like Manish Sisodia and Saurabh Bhardwaj tasted defeat.

In another instance of the AAP’s outreach to the business community ahead of the bypoll, the Mann government, on March 4, announced a one-time settlement scheme to resolve pending cases of land allotment by the Punjab State Industrial Export Corporation. Kejriwal also announced that the AAP government would waive compound and penal interest of dues of industrial plots, a long-pending demand of the industry.

While the BJP always projects its pro-business image, the AAP’s outreach is being viewed in political circles as a “shift” from its previous “farm-centric” position. The BJP’s Ludhiana district president Rajnish Dhiman said the Centre was “trying to help the state’s ailing industry”. On the other hand, CM Mann told the industrialists that he was “just a phone call away”.

“The AAP government is now realising that appeasing farmers for all these years seems to have backfired and therefore, for the first time, Mann took a tough stand against the farmer unions’ proposed ‘Chandigarh chalo’ rally. The assurances are fine but it is high time that their words are also translated into reality,” said the president of the All Industries and Trade Forum, Badish Jindal.

Claiming that the Centre’s schemes related to MSMEs were not being implemented in Punjab, CICU president Upkar Singh said, “The Centre and Punjab government need to coordinate. A Centre-initiated textile park was stalled by the AAP government over concerns raised by an NGO. How can the industry flourish like this? It is good we met the representatives of the Centre as well as the state government.”

A proposed textile park on 1,000 acres in Mattewara along the banks of the Sutlej was scrapped after environmentalists raised concerns.

The president of the Association of Trade and Industrial Undertakings, Pankaj Sharma, expressed satisfaction that both the governments were “finally giving importance to the industry” in Punjab. “The Punjab government’s pro-farmer approach has hit the industry. With highways being blocked frequently by farmers over the past year, the state was being viewed as a protest state. We welcome the Mann government’s move to reach out to us but it needs to show its pro-industry face in reality,” he said.

Punjab imports 90% of the scrap for steel-related products and sells 90% of its manufactured goods to other states. It also exports rice worth over Rs 8,000 crore, woollen and cotton clothes worth Rs 7,500 crore, meat worth nearly Rs 2,000 crore, auto parts worth around Rs 2,500 crore, yarn worth Rs 2,000 crore, cloth and linen worth Rs 3,500 crore, scaffolding worth Rs 1,300 crore, tools, medicines and other chemicals worth Rs 1,800 crore, tractors and agricultural implements worth Rs 800 crore, and fasteners, flanges and other products worth Rs 1,200 crore. State industrialists have often expressed their fears

that frequent highway blockades and protests by the farmers would affect their businesses.

Expressing happiness over the business outreach by both the Centre and the state government, Sharma cited the example of the DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu’s “remarkable” industrial growth to emphasise the need for a vision. “The Union Minister expressed his helplessness citing pending approvals from the Commerce Ministry. However, the Ludhiana West bypoll is probably the reason why the BJP and AAP are reaching out to us… There has been no major investment in Punjab for the past 20 years.. We are industrious people. We generate jobs and pay taxes. We deserve ease of doing business,” he said.

On their part, the industry representatives demanded a technology upgradation fund for the hosiery sector, funds for setting up working women’ hostels, a ban on duty-free garment imports from Bangladesh and the establishment of more industrial parks.