Chandigarh, January 12
The Empowered Committee on Industries, which met here today under the chairmanship of the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, approved 16 new mega projects, including the establishment of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Amritsar, worth Rs 15,981.17 crore.

At least 20,000 acres will be required for these projects in the state. Obviously, with the approval of these projects, the price of agricultural land, especially in the Mohali-Kharar belt and the Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Patiala areas, will shoot up in the days to come.

An interesting development is that companies like Quark, which first set up shop in Punjab in the IT sector, are now showing greater interest in infrastructure development projects such as the SEZ. Quark is not the only IT company to do so. There are other major IT companies which are asking for land from the Punjab Government.

Why are these companies showing greater interest in real estate? Recently, a former Prime Minister, Mr Deve Gowda, had raised serious questions about the demand for big chunks of land from the Karnataka Government to set up IT units. He had questioned the motives of these companies in seeking big stretches of land at prime places from various governments.

When questioned in this connection, Mr Fred Ebrahimi, Chairman of Quark, said that there was nothing new in it. “ We were in this business earlier also”, he added. Asked how many jobs Quark had created for Punjabis in Mohali, Mr Ebrahimi came out with a vague answer: thousands. When asked to give a specific number, he was unable to say anything.

The government claimed that the projects cleared today would generate direct employment for 4,30,600 persons besides large-scale indirect employment. However, how many of these jobs will be meant for youth of Punjab? Capt Amarinder Singh said he would not fix any limit or quota for any company to give jobs to youth of Punjab. “The entire country is one and I am opposed to states which are making it mandatory for companies to give jobs to their youth only”, he added.

Most of these companies will create jobs for the labour class, which will be engaged in building SEZs and townships. However, the state’s economy will be benefited because of the increased demand for bricks, steel and other materials required for buildings, roads and other infrastructure.

A government spokesman said the SEZ in Amritsar would be developed by DLF Universal Ltd on 1,000 acres. The committee also gave its nod to other SEZ projects in Jalandhar and Ludhiana, each spread over 2,500 acres, to be set up by making an investment of Rs 1,800 crore. The government claimed both would generate employment for 4,000 persons.

The committee approved six housing projects in the districts of Ludhiana and Jalandhar and in Mohali with an investment of Rs12,312 crore, generating employment for 2,28,700 persons. These include five projects of the Dubai-based company, EMMAR MGF Ltd. MGF is to build an integrated golf and leisure city in Mohali, a premium integrated township in Jalandhar, Mohali trade and entertainment city, an integrated township with special education and wellness zone in Mohali and a golf view township at Ludhiana.

The spokesman further said that the Empowered Committee had so far approved 95 projects at its various meetings with a total investment of about Rs 43,265.17 crore. The next meeting of the committee would be held on January 27 to clear the remaining projects.

By the end of January 31, the committee was expecting to clear total projects worth Rs 50,000 crore. These projects had been approved for Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Ropar, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepore, Mandi Gobindgarh, Fatehgarh Sahib and Sangrur districts and were at various stages of implementation.

The other projects approved included the Ludhiana Integrated Textile Park worth Rs 1,500 crore. This would generate employment for 85,000 persons, the government said. The research and development project regarding agriculture to be set up by making an investment of Rs 92 crore in Ludhiana district had also been approved.

All five projects submitted by Quark had been approved. There will be an investment of Rs3,155 crore in these projects. Of these, four relate to the establishment of SEZs in the Patiala-Sangrur-Fatehgarh Sahib region, the Amritsar-Gurdaspur-Kapurthala region, the Jalandhar-Ludhiana-Hoshiarpur region and a product-specific SEZ for the manufacturing industry in Patiala. Besides, Quark will set up a Free Trade and Warehousing Zone on 50 acres. The state government had recommended these SEZs to the Government of India.