State to ‘consciously’ shift investment focus from coal mining to other sectors

MOMENTUM JHARKHAND

DURING ITS two-day global investors’ summit 2017 (GIS-2017) — ‘Momentum Jharkhand’ — beginning Thursday, the state government will look to attract investments in sectors such as information technology, electronic design, food processing, textile and tourism, and will “consciously” move away from “core areas” like coal mining.

Officials said that this was being done “consciously” to project Jharkhand as a state that had to offer much more than coal mining or heavy industries, a perception created for the state over the years. They added that this would also help do away with the negative image that had been created due to various projects in these sectors that are either not taking off or languishing at various stages.

The ‘shelf of projects’, a document giving an indication of possible areas and projects to investors that has been uploaded on the ‘Momentum Jharkhand’ portal, also does not mention investment potential (IP) in the mining sector.

Besides, barring a couple of projects related to coal mining, it mentions smaller minerals like kyanite, stone quarries, copper and precious metals like gold (which requires much smaller area, compared to mining coal). The document mentions total IP to the tune of around Rs 1.86 lakh crore. However, officials said that estimated investments have already crossed Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

According to documents, projects — many of which are at some stage of implementation — were available for investors in sectors such as IT, healthcare, education, tourism, textile, electronic designing and food processing, and agri-based products, urban development and social welfare schemes. According to the document, these are estimated to have an IP of worth Rs 40,000 crore.

In the document related to policy decisions, the state government has listed 16 new policies related to different sectors that have been formulated in the last two years. There is no mention of any new policy related to coal and mining.

“This is a summit to attract investment from across the globe. Therefore, it makes sense to project other sectors as well rather than remaining stuck with things like coal mining. The time of people coming here and asking for huge tracts of land and then not setting up their business are now a things of past,” said an official.