Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Friday exhorted Karnataka industrialists to come and invest in the state to take advantage of the positive industrial climate and uninterrupted power supply.
“Himachal Pradesh is an industrial-friendly state without any labour issues. We have 24X7 supply of electricity in the state and assure industrialists that there will not be any hike in power prices till 2018,” he said.
Interacting with state industrialists at the Emerging Himachal Investors Meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to promote the state as an attractive investment destination, Singh said the state is developing industrial corridors, clusters and other manufacturing facilities in the state.
Himachal Pradesh has production capacity of 27,000 MW power but produces only 10,000 MW presently.
“Our government is fully committed to providing infrastructural development despite the geographical constraints. When we make commitments to investors, we always try to adhere to our promises. I would like to offer an open invitation to industry from Karnataka to invest in Himachal Pradesh,” he said.
Besides simplifying the approval procedures for medium a nd largescale industrial projects, Singh assured investors that a single-window mechanism would be introduced by framing an inter-departmental application form to facilitate project approvals within 90 days.
He also appealed to industrialists to tap growing opportunities in manufacturing, tourism, food processing, IT/ITeS, pharma, automobiles, auto components and electronics manufacturing.
“Even though we have a lot of manufacturing units in Himachal Pradesh, we are keen on the IT sector growing in our state. Bangalore is the IT capital and we want to lure IT companies here to Himachal,” said Mukesh Agnihotri, Minister for industries, Labour & Employment, Himachal Pradesh.
Companies such as Volvo, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Kurlon Limited, Wipro and TVS Motor met Virbhadra Singh and discussed prospects of investing in Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal Pradesh, with 82.82 percent literacy rate, gives quality skilled work force to industries. The presence of educational instutes like IIT, NIT, NIFT, 17 privately managed engineering colleges, 38 polytechnics and more than 220 ITI’s help the state to churn out skilled labour force.
The state is ranked as one of the foremost in the country in human development and infrastructure indices with a rapidly emerging middle class.
