Mumbai: The government of Jharkhand held its seminal investment promotion road show in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the city, under the banner “Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors’ Summit 2017”. It was the campaign’s second rendezvous with Mumbai following the maiden meeting of the Jharkhand Investment Promotion Board in July this year. JIPB is a special body for planning and executing strategies to enhance Jharkhand’s position as a global business centre.
Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das, in his address, said, “While Mumbai, the Gateway to India, Jharkhand is fast emerging as the gateway to Make In India. Our campaign took off seven months ago with the blessings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in this city, during the Make In India Week. It was the vision of our foremost industrial pioneers, Jamsedji Tata which set the tone for Make in India back in 1907, in Jamshedpur. Jharkhand has incomparable natural beauty. Its beauty has the potential to pull people from across the oceans. Jharkhand’s people and institutions, you can witness here amongst us, have made a global mark in areas from manufacturing, to education and sports. Jharkhand is a rich land. But poverty still looms large within. It is our mission to deliver our people of this poverty. You, the industry and investors are our partners in this mission. Our governance is policy-driven and one of high integrity. We are committed to sustainable wealth creation and shared prosperity. We call upon one and all to be part of our mission, Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors’ Summit 2017, as a team.” Das reiterated his resolve to synergise education, skills development, infrastructural development and livelihood generation to empower the youth of Jharkhand and prevent further attrition of its human resource.
Chandreshwar Prasad Singh, Minister of Urban Development, Government of Jharkhand, said, “The government of Raghubar Das, on being given the people’s mandate, in a matter of just 20 months, achieved political stability for the state. Our governance systems are focusing on making Jharkhand cities more amenable to housing global communities of investors through a strong focus on the social sector, principally healthcare, education and public recreation. We call upon investors to invest in our smart city project on Public-Private Partnership basis.” Besides, solid waste management, multimodal urban transport and housing for all are key sectors in which the government is soliciting private investments.
Dr. Smt. Neera Yadav, Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of Jharkhand, stressed on the centrality of the skills development agenda of the government in this campaign. “MoUs have been signed with CISCO, ORACLE and Hewlett Packard among global corporations in the field of skills development, so that Jharkhand is ready for the next phase of technology leveraged industrial diversification.
This strategy will greatly develop the support system that Jharkhand’s key industries need to compete globally. Jharkhand’s present higher education gross enrollment ratio is 16.1 per cent. But I am convinced that soon we will vault over the national average and start aspiring to better global standards. We aim to set up over 600 institutions of higher education over the coming years. I call upon Private institutions to partner with us in our mission”, she added, commending the inspiring vision and leadership of Chief Minister Das.
In her keynote address, Rajbala Verma, Chief Secretary Jharkhand said, “Given that Mumbai accounts for a large chunk of the country’s industrial output and national GDP, we have come here again to make Jharkhand more visible to the investors of this city.” Verma highlighted some recent MoUs signed by the Government of Jharkhand in the recent past. “We have successfully matched investment opportunities with global industry trends – through focused and dynamic policies catering to a wide spectrum of sectors. These policies are indicative of the larger intent of business reforms.” she added. Smt. Verma informed that Jharkhand is about to launch a dedicated Start-up policy and a highly responsive e-mentoring system for start-up entrepreneurs, and that the Chief Minister recently supervised the inking of MoUs with 42 service providers in the area of skills development.
Industries Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal persuasively presented the state’s diverse investment opportunities to the audience. “The Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy 2016 forms the basic framework of our mission to make Jharkhand the most business friendly state in India. There are several investment ready projects, information on which is publicly through our publication, Shelf of Projects.
The projects span across sectors such as smart city development, electronic manufacturing, BPO, food processing, industrial parks, healthcare and education, etc. We have succeeded in concurrently establishing thriving systems of single window clearance, time bound grievance redress, industry consultation mechanisms, and multi-pronged incentive schemes”, he added.
Barnwal informed the audience that Jharkhand’s air-cargo hub will be inaugurated soon, boosting the role of the state in logistics in Eastern India and further. “The competitive costs of doing business in Jharkhand are the lowest in India, especially owing to power tariff and liberalized labour regulation”, he said.
On the start-up front, Barnwal informed the audience that the state Government has brought on board a team from IIM Ahmedabad to help set up a centralised Start-up Incubation Facility. On the sidelines of the roadshow, the Government was scheduled to interact with several venture capitalists to promote the government’s start-up strategy.
T.V. Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel (India & S.E. Asia) emphasised the key role Jharkhand plays in boosting global investments in India’s exploration and mining sector with the primary objective of achieving greater efficiencies.
“Industries Secretary Barnwal did well to mention that the time the foundation of India’s first steel plant, the backbone of Make in India was being conceived, around the same time, this hotel in Mumbai was being conceived by Tata Group’s founder JN Tata. Jharkhand already has an international presence. Our investments in the state involve joint ventures with the most established steel companies in Japan and Australia.
Jharkhand is rich in minerals, but is richer in human resources. What better to have an ecosystem that houses the Indian Bureau of Mines and knowledge hubs such as XLRI. Jharkhand is increasingly creating hope and excitement for Eastern India, in a highly competitive ecology involving East and Southeast Asia. As someone with more than 100 years of experience in the region, we are convinced that this is the best time to invest in the state of Jharkhand”, he added.
Ninad Karpe, CMD of Aptech Ltd, in his opening remarks, commended the Government of Jharkhand for boosting the brand visibility of the state through a strong focus on cluster centric approach for sustainable industrial diversification.
Gaurav Taneja of the campaign’s knowledge partner Ernst & Young, said, “In the last 18 months, we have seen paradigm shifts in the state. Jharkhand is leading nationally in e-Governance, especially under Digital India’s e-services and digitization fronts. The rollout of the National Optic Fibre System to the remotest parts of Jharkhand is being accomplished at a very fast pace. Jharkhand’s forward looking policies have now put the state on the international investor map. This leadership has actually brought a revolutionary attitudinal shift – from the role of a regulator to that of a facilitator.
From multimodal infrastructure, housing, power generation, to higher education and skills development, the Government of Jharkhand has taken momentous steps that match global benchmarks.”
Sharing his experience Sudhir Dhingra, Chairman of Orient Craft Ltd., said, “In my experience of 41 years, I thought that no government has understood the all-encompassing social and economic benefits of the textiles industry, before my meeting with Chief Minister Shri. Raghubar Das and his team. Ever since the meeting, the government has tirelessly wanted to take the relationship to fruition.
The textiles industry has an unprecedented opportunity through Jharkhand to enhance its competitiveness and competency to global standards, and catch up with Bangladesh, China and Southeast Asia – and expand India’s global trade share of the textiles sector from a meager 16 billion USD out of 600 billion USD. Today the Indian textiles sector employs about 40 million people.
Jharkhand is among the very few systems with a genuine promise and political will to do justice to this labour intensive sector.
Orient Craft will signing two agreements with Jharkhand – one to set up a park of over 140 acres and the second, to set up a skilling centre for the sector.”
