The NRI Sammelan held in January this year has been able to generate
an agro-based project in Punjab. The project has received the nod of
the Empowered Committee on Mega Projects and a letter of intent (LoI)
has been issued. Notably, as much as 25 to 40 per cent of bookings in
projects such as Emaar-MGF's Mohali Hills, Parsvnath's Pride Asia, Pearls
City Mohali, to name a few, have come from NRIs
While the Punjab Chief Minister had also mooted the idea of setting
up a separate empowered committee for expeditious clearances to NRI
investment projects in the state during the Sammelan this year,
no other investment proposal has come to the various government departments
from the Punjabi Diaspora so far. The much-hyped proposal of US-based
hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal for converting the historic Gobindgarh Fort
in Amritsar into a seven-star hotel has not been able to receive government's
nod due to heritage concerns. His Hampshire Hotels and Resorts had announced
to invest Rs 1,500-2,000 crore in the state, including a business hotel
in Ludhiana, a seven-star hotel in Mohali, besides giving Gobindgarh
Fort a makeover.
But Punjab hopes the new industrial policy and major infrastructure
projects it plans to roll out from this year will be able to make a
difference. "Besides deciding on quantum of investment, location
and other factors, NRIs have also to scout for partners or joint ventures
to set up and manage the projects," says NRI Affairs Commissioner
AS Chatwal. But a former NRI Affairs commissioner feels its development
of their native villages or communities through donations and purchasing
land that NRIs are more interested in than bothering with investing
in the state. They have done some commendable philanthropic and development
work in their villages in the Doaba belt, home to the largest number
of NRIs from the state, he adds. As for non-entrepreneurial Punjabi
NRIs, they still consider investing in property as the best bet, though
a discernable difference now is that they are looking beyond their native
villages and it is the upcoming private realty projects in Chandigarh,
Mohali, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar that have caught their fancy.
