Jharkhand bullish, aims to attract ₹70,000-cr investment in 3 years

The mineral-rich Jharkhand is aiming to attract investments of ₹70,000 crore in 2-3 years, largely from knowledge-based service providers and IT companies which had signed agreement with the state government in the first ever Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors Summit held last month.

The state government has set up a core team led by Sunil Kumar Barnwal, Secretary to Chief Minister, IT and Industries, to interact with businessmen and facilitate investments that can be processed in less than six to eight months.

The state made headlines last month by signing 209 MoUs with investment commitment of ₹3 lakh crore from large corporates, including JSW Steel, Vedanta Ltd and Adani Group.

In an interaction with BusinessLine , Barnwal said large investments of ₹3,000-5,000 crore in manufacturing would take four-five years to materialise as various factors such as allocation of resources and land acquisition come into play. Chief Minister Raghubar Das wants the state to target the low-hanging fruits with investment of ₹100-500 crore that can be rolled out in less than a year, he said. “I had interactions with some of the small and medium companies in manufacturing and IT in Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai. We are to close to finalising some of these in deals within a month,” Barnwal said.

KPIT Technologies, a Pune-based software developer, has sought space to set up office with 100 staff in Ranchi and is keen to start operations by May. KPIT, which has the technology to produce electric buses, has also sought five acres to set up an automobile park near Jamshedpur. The state is planning to have an electric car zone within the automobile park.

“We ourselves will order 8-10 electric buses for the smart city and take their services for the smart city,” Barnwal said.

BSA Corporation, which supplies auto components to Tata Motors, has sought 40,000 sq feet space to set up a virtual driver training and testing centre. The state government will look at a PPP model for taking online road test for issuing licences.

Brindley Technologies which provides IT support services to large manufacturing companies, has sought two acres to manufacture ATM and self-operating kiosks. Kaushal Triveni Food Park wants to invest in a food processing at Bokaro coming up on 130 acres. The knowledge-based and agriculture oriented projects can come up within three months and does not need huge land.

The State government plans to lease out ready built-up space of one lakh square feet to knowledge-based ventures.

“It is kind of plug-play model for new ventures. Initially, these offices were built for government purpose but has become surplus with most of the work going online,” he said.

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