After Gujarat, it is now Madhya Pradesh on an overdrive to pitch itself as an investment destination. A delegation headed by the State Chief Minister, Mr Shivraj Singh Chouhan, kicked off a promotional road show that will travel to several Indian cities from Pune.

Amongst the sectors that the Government is focusing on for development are automobile engineering, agri-business and food processing, tourism, mining, textile, pharmaceuticals and education, he said.

“We have in our possession 20,000 hectares of land across the State and are developing 27 new industrial estates,” Mr Chouhan said.

Road infrastructure

The State is also investing in building road infrastructure with the addition of 2,000 km of State highways every year to the existing 60,000 km of roads, he said. “We have 6,000 MW of power and are adding 5,000 MW in the next 18 months. By 2014, M.P. will be self sufficient in this respect,” he added.

To provide for the manpower requirements of industry, M.P. has taken on a skill development initiative which covers setting up of 113 ITIs . Two hundred more are to be set up next year.

In the last two years, the State saw new industrial projects involving an investment of Rs 114,000 crore go on stream, while another Rs 110,000 crore worth of projects will go into production this year. “We have serious proposals for an added Rs 140,000 crore,” Mr Chouhan said.

After Pune, investment promotion road shows are scheduled to be held in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi and are a forerunner to the ‘Invest Madhya Pradesh Global Investors Summit’ to be held from October 28-30.

alka@thehindu.co.in

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