Puducherry CM woos investors

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy has assured entrepreneurs here that the Union Territory is endowed with the best industrial climate for investment.

Addressing the 2nd edition of Indian Business Congress on Saturday, he highlighted the potential – “be it land bank availability, skilled manpower, clean air, water or a peaceful environment for investment – Puducherry has it all.”

Blames bureaucracy

“If investments have to come, the State should be peaceful, it should be corruption-free, the government should offer incentives and, above all, the State should have a progressive industrial policy. But, in India, bureaucracy is the biggest bottleneck for any development,” Narayanasamy said.

He conceded that running an industry in this competitive and highly politicised atmosphere is a huge challenge. He added that government support “is lacking in India, and the industrial climate and employment generation are not very encouraging.”

“What have we achieved by demonetisation?” Narayanasamy asked, averring that the purpose for which it was thrust upon – be it for curbing black money or flushing out the (now) withdrawn notes from the hands of terrorists – could not be achieved.

“The achievement, on the other hand, was only in bringing down the country's GDP by 2 per cent. And now, with the rollout of GST, the growth is getting even more stunted. These actions were taken without thinking,” the Chief Minister alleged.

Lack of investments

“Being a consuming State, Puducherry has been impacted to the extent of 40 per cent. Industrial investments are not coming to the Union Territory because of this. But we have announced an industrial policy. We have won five awards in the last two years – for the best administration, for maintaining law and order, tourism potential, organic farming and best industrial award as well. But for Kiran Bedi, we would have bagged more,” he said in a lighter vein.

Smart City project

“With the government identifying Puducherry for Smart City project, we have started working on the same. We have started revamping the traffic system, widening the roads and many such initiatives, but sadly enough, the required funding support is not coming from the centre. We are, however, trying to overcome the bureaucratic menace,” he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event organised by the Entrepreneurs Council of India, Narayanasamy categorically stated that demonetisation was a wrong move.

“In the aftermath, businesses have been impacted, real estate has taken a beating, there has been job loss, money in circulation has tightened. The industries are yet to recover from the setback,” he said.

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