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Amarinder clears SEZ for Amritsar

Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH: A special economic zone at Amritsar is among 16 mega projects cleared by the Punjab Government on Thursday. It has also granted approval to corporate majors to launch their ventures in high value horticulture products.

Announcing this at a press conference after chairing the Empowered Committee on Industries, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said that the SEZ at Amritsar, which would come up with a total investment of Rs 15,981.17 crores and offer employment to 4.30 lakh persons, would be developed by a leading construction company, DLF Universal Ltd. over an area of 1000 acres.

The Union Government has already accorded its approval to the project.

The Committee also gave its nod to another SEZ project on 2500 acres at Jalandhar and Ludhiana, with an investment of Rs. 1800 crores, which would offer employment to 4000 persons. According to an official spokesman, the Committee has so far approved 95 projects in its various meetings lining up total investment of Rs. 43,265.17 crores.

The other proposals approved on Thursday included a Rs. 1500- crore Integrated Textile Park, expected to generate a employment for 85000 persons, and a research and development (R&D) project for agricultural products with an investment of Rs.92 crores with an employment potential for 91000 persons, in Ludhiana district. An Industrial Park at Mohali was also granted approval.

The Committee recommended to the Union Government for clearance of the additional proposals worth Rs. 3155 crores, submitted by IT multinational M/s Quark, which seeks establish four SEZs.

The spokesman disclosed that four projects of multiplex, hotels and restaurants in the districts of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar, entailing an investment of Rs 215.56 crores, were approved along with six housing projects with an investment of Rs. 12,312 crores and generating employment for 2,28,700 persons. These include five projects by the Dubai- based M/s EMMAR MGF Ltd. with an investment of Rs.11069 crores.

In the second meeting of the Empowered Committee on Agriculture, which was also chaired by Capt Singh, four significant initiatives were announced, which included approval to an NRI group to set up an integrated horticulture processing unit in Fatehgarh Sahib district to service horticulturalists in the agri export zone comprising Fatehgarh Sahib, Ropar, Patiala, Ludhiana and Nawanshahr districts.

Capt. Singh further said that this integrated complex, which was scheduled to commissioned in this financial year itself, would have India's largest food processing facility with the state-of-the-art technologies.

The Chief Minister also announced that the country's corporate major, ITC, would begin its expansion into horticulture from Punjab by setting up a Rs 25- crore integrated pilot project for high value horticulture with a focus on delivering value to the cultivator as well as the consumer.

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