Patanjali to set up food park in Punjab: Sukhbir Badal

Chandigarh

Patanjali Ayurved, an Indian FMCG company, will set up a Food Park at Ludhiana while ITC is coming with a food processing unit in the state, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said here today.

“Patanjali approached the Punjab government and expressed desire to set up a food park in Punjab,” Sukhbir Badal said while making a presentation on ‘Perspective on development and governance in Punjab for the last nine years’.

He said “the company (Patanjali) is impressed with the policy on industry in the state” and would “set up a Food park in Ludhiana.”

The Deputy Chief Minister said ITC is coming up with a food processing unit in the state.

With zero tax policy on food processing units, several giants like Pepsi, Coke are coming into this venture, he said.

“Patanjali will lay the foundation stone of the food park in April,” he said adding that the multi-branding in the food processing industry is benefiting the state in a “big manner.”

“The overall target through food processing in the state is around Rs one lakh crore this year,” he said.

Badal who is also the president of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) described his government’s nine year rule as “fully satisfactory”.

“I am satisfied with my tenure and what I have achieved,” he said adding that the state had shown unprecedented development during the SAD-BJP regime.

Punjab is slated to go for polls early next year.

Rebutting the claims of opposition political parties that Punjab is debt ridden, he said that “we managed to pull the state from bad to progressive phase.”

“In the last nine years we have made historic achievements in comparison to what earlier governments did for the state,” he said.

The SAD president said that he was “happy with the performance” of the state government and exuded confidence that SAD-BJP alliance would form the next government again.

Hitting out at his political opponents, he said that they brought bad name to the state by “false propaganda”. More PIT VJ

Highlighting the development initiatives taken by his government in the past nine years, the Punjab Deputy Chief Minister said “We have crossed all limits of development…we have gone beyond expectations.”

He dismissed the opposition allegations that Punjab is bankrupt, had poor infrastructure, there is poor governance and industry is migrating out of the state.

The VAT collection by the state government amounted to Rs 70,000 crore, the Deputy Chief Minister said.

Rejecting the allegations that Punjab government is selling lands to pay salaries to its employees, he said that government owned agencies are developing barren lands and selling these to generate revenues.

Holding that the net debt on the state is to the tune of Rs 1,12,366 crore, Sukhbir Badal, claimed that it had increased only by Rs 50,000 crore in the last nine years and is much less than Gujarat.

He alleged that the previous governments at the Centre “discriminated” against Punjab.

“Besides, governments at Centre has given money to states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which is unfair with Punjab as far as devolution of funds by the Union government is concerned,” he added.

Implementation of report of state’s fifth pay commission was a big reason behind growing debt on the state, he said.

Referring to power issue, the Deputy Chief Minister said Punjab is “power surplus” state with “cheapest” power tariff in the entire country.

On the issue of drugs, he said that the state is waging a war against drugs as it is a “transit point” as drugs flow from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Punjab police registered 14,654 cases against those involved in the trade of drugs. The conviction rate is 80.5 per cent,” he said.

Sukhbir Badal also referred to various initiatives taken for the farm sector, including waiving off Rs 6000 crore bills of tubewells and doing health insurance of farmers.

Sukhbir Badal claimed that Punjab’s own tax revenues have increased from Rs 36,808 crore during Congress regime to 1.68 lakh crore during the last nine years.

Making picture clearer regarding revenue receipts, he said that 5 year rule of previous Congress government yielded only Rs 36,808 crore whereas during 2007-12, this figure was Rs 68,757 crore which rose to Rs 99,741 crore during 2012 until now.

Comparing excise collections, he said that excise taxes during Congress regime were Rs 1,429 crore in 2002 which decreased to Rs 1,368 crore till 2007.

“In stark contrast by the end of the first term of SAD-BJP rule, excise collections had jumped to Rs 2,755 crore and are expected to be Rs 5,100 crore this year,” he said.

Punjab’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had increased from Rs 5.04 lakh crore during Congress rule to Rs 23.60 lakh crore during the last nine years, he claimed.

Sukhbir said corruption could be contained not by making legislations but by implementing IT solutions thereby minimising the interface between officials and public for fast delivery of citizen centric services.

“My aim is to make the Punjab not inline but online and under this mission the state-of-the-art 2174 Sewa Kenders were being set up costing Rs 2000 crore for delivery of government to citizen (G2C) and business to citizen (B2C) services in rural as well as urban areas at a cost of Rs 450 crore,” he said.

PTI