Punjab to offer cheapest power below Rs 5 per unit to new investors - Sukhbir Singh Badal

Pune/Chandigarh, September 4, 2015: Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today announced the State would offer the cheapest power rate in the country of less than Rs 5 per unit to all new investors.

Addressing the fourth Western Regional Council meeting of the CII here, the Deputy chief minister said the power rate would not only be the cheapest in the country, but also continuous. "We will be coming out with a policy in this regard shortly after talking it up in the State cabinet", he added.

Mr Badal also told a large number of investors who had gathered here that there was a huge scope for investors to provide municipal services in 180 towns in the State. "We have decided to tender out out all municipal services like road, water, lighting and sewerage to private parties on build, operate and maintain basis for five to ten year periods". He said the State had already achieved some progress on this front with Trivani being entrusted with maintaining all such facilities in Amritsar. He said similarly Shapoorji Pallonji had been tasked with managing faculties in part of Amritsar.

Following a demand from prospective IT investors, Mr Badal disclosed that besides creation of an IT city in Mohali with Infosys as the anchor unit, the State would offer similar infrastructure in tier two cities. "We have land banks and pre cleared sites which are available for the taking immediately", he added.

The Deputy CM said the State was moving fast as far as clearances were concerned. "Invest Punjab, the nodal office for all investments, is able to give all necessary clearances within an average of 38 days. However in many cases we have moved faster. For instance recently Invest Punjab was able to give all clearances to Kansai Nerolac within 20 days".

Explaining the concept, Mr Badal said Invest Punjab had been successful because it had adopted a model of one office, one person, one e mail and one phone. "We have been been able to attract 200 companies with an investment of 3 billion dollars due to this bold move", he added.

The Deputy CM while replying to a question from CII Vice President Shobana Kamineni, said the incentives being offered by Punjab were available to all entrepreneurs investing Rs one crore and more and not big investors alone. While explaining other advantages of Punjab, he said by March next year the entire State will be connected by 4 G.

CII Western Region head Sanjay Kirloskar also spoke on the occasion at the function which was attended by Media Advisor to Deputy CM - Jangveer Singh, Secretary Investment Promotion Karan Avtar Singh and Secretary Power A. Venu Prasad.

Earlier Mr Badal interacted with representatives of Praj Industries and John Deere. Mr Pramod Chaudhari of Praj said his company possessed the technology to produce ethanol from bio agri waste. The Deputy CM said the government would examine coming out with a policy to encourage this. John Deere CEO and MD Satish Nadegar also interacted with Mr Badal and discussed ways and means to engage with Punjab.