Punjab Cabinet okays land bank for industrial projects

Punjab Economy

04-Dec-19

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Days ahead of the Progressive Punjab Investors’ Summit- 2019, the Punjab Cabinet decided to amend the rules to create land bank for industrial projects.
During the meeting, the amendment of rules to promote ease of business for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) was also okayed.
To create the land bank to promote industrial projects in rural areas, the Cabinet decided to amend the Punjab Village Common Land (Regulation) Rules, 1964.
The panchayats will get their dues in lieu of transferring the land for development. The earlier policy of leasing out the common village land for a period of 33 years did not get a good response as investors could not hypothecate the land for getting institutional finance.
An ordinance will be brought to insert Rule 12-B in the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Rules, 1964, to provide special provision for transfer of shamlat land for development of industrial infrastructure projects, to be implemented by the Industry Department and Punjab Small Industries & Export Corporation. The objective was to facilitate gram panchayats to promote development of villages by unlocking the value of shamlat land.
Under the project, the state government has proposed to develop a Global Manufacturing and Knowledge Park at Rajpura in Patiala district, to be considered as an integrated manufacturing cluster under the Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC) Project, covering 1,000 acres of panchayat land.
It has been pointed out that the Union Finance Ministry has asked the state to make available the land for the development of the AKIC project at the earliest. The proposed economic corridor between the cities of Amritsar and Kolkata was envisaged to further give impetus to industrial activities in the northern and eastern parts of the country.The executive agency (PSIEC) will purchase 1,000-acre shamlat land at a cost of around Rs 357 crore from these panchayats.