Thaindian News

Chandigarh, July 20 (IANS) Setting up integrated sugar complexes in border areas of Punjab will fetch a string of incentives for the investors, a minister announced here Wednesday.

“The Punjab government today notified the new package of concessions for integrated sugar complexes to be set up in the border region of the state,” state Industries and Commerce Minister Tikshan Sud said here.

He said that Punjab, India’s green revolution state and the highest contributor of food grain to the national kitty, was a net importer of sugar, with consumption exceeding the production.

Despite sugarcane being grown by farmers in Punjab, the state has to import sugar from other states to meet its demand.

“This policy is set to reverse the trend. It aims to encourage integrated sugar complexes to make them financially viable projects,” he said.

The package, for units with investment of Rs.200 crore, includes allowing setting up of a power generation unit, 100 percent exemption for 10 years from electricity duty on export of power from the unit, setting up a grain or sugarcane based ethanol distillery, incentives admissible to mega projects and stamp duty waiver on the purchase of land for the project.

The incentives are bigger for units with investment of Rs.400 crore and more, Sud said.

“By setting up such complexes, Punjab will become a sugar exporting state. It will also provide employment, promote agriculture and also affiliated industry,” Sud added.

Punjab shares a 553-km barbed-wire fenced border with Pakistan on the west, mainly in the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Ferozepur.