Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The Union Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textile Piyush Goyal on Thursday informed that the Punjab Government withdrew its application for the centre’s mega textile park scheme, citing unavailability of land as the reason, as per a report by The Tribune.
“The Centre has unveiled production-linked incentive schemes across sectors and does not discriminate between states. In fact, under the PM Mitra scheme, the Centre is building seven mega textile parks for which applications were invited. Punjab applied and then withdrew its application saying it did not have the land. So even if we want, we cannot consider Punjab under the scheme,” the minister said.
Speaking at a press conference after the 13th India-US Trade Policy Forum in Washington DC, Goyal appreciated the Sikh enterprise and appealed to the Punjab Government to become more proactive in seeking investment and competing for central incentives.
“Today states have to make a compelling case to invite investments,” he said. Goyal urged the state government as well as the industry to take actions on the investment front.
Hailing the contribution of Sikhs to the US trucking industry, the minister said, “We are proud that the Sikh community has made its mark worldwide by the dint of hard work.”
Meanwhile, for the establishment of the textile park under the central government scheme PM MITRA (Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel), at least nine states had submitted proposals including Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, Darshana Jardosh, Union Minister of State for Textile and Railways had informed in March last year.
The Centre has planned to invest around Rs 4,445 crore by 2027-28 to develop these parks by providing plug-and-play facilities for investors in the sector.
Earlier this month, Jardosh said that India’s textile industry should capture the global market and move up the value chain, while making research and marketing imperative, reported KNN.