The Punjab Cabinet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann approved new industrial and electric vehicle policies here on Friday, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said. Talking to media, Cheema said that the Punjab Electric Vehicle Policy and the new Industrial Policy, both have been approved in the cabinet.
The approval of both the policies comes days ahead of an investors’ summit to be organised by the state government on February 23-24 in Mohali.
Housing and Urban development minister Aman Arora, who was also present with Cheema, said the new industrial policy pitches Punjab as a favourite investment destination, adding that the chief minister has recently visited some states in the country to garner investments.
Talking about the formulation of new industrial policy, Arora said that suggestions of various stakeholders from the industry have been incorporated.
He also talked about various incentives being offered to the industries including low power rates.
Arora also said that Electric Vehicles are the future and that government has already announced incentives for those switching over to electric vehicles under the vehicle scrapping policy.
Charging stations will also be installed on a large scale in the state, he said.
Arora said the cabinet also accorded its approval for the introduction of public mining sites to ensure that sand and gravel are available at reasonable rates to common people.
Initially, 18 such sites will come up in 7 districts, of which, one will be inaugurated on February 5 by the chief minister, he said.
By the end of March, 50 such sites will be functional in the state. It will also ease up supply and make sand easily available to the public, said Arora.
Mining and Geology Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer had recently said that “these sites will help in checking any malpractice to jack up the prices of sand and truly give the freedom of choice to the common man to buy sand from the source of his choice and at the price of his choice”
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The credit relief measures given to MSMEs in the Union budget are a welcome move, SMEV said and added that since many EV manufacturers also fall in this category, it hopes that these credit relief measures would be extended to them also, as they too had faced tremendous hardships during the pandemic.