Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has invited US industry majors to invest in his state, positioning it as the logistics and manufacturing hub of India in a post-GST regime offering business-friendly policies.
Chouhan, in a series of meetings with US industry representatives and leaders of the corporate world has invited them to invest in his state. “I am not only the chief minister, but also CEO (chief executive officer) of Madhya Pradesh. If there is any problem,
I try to resolve that immediately. Madhya Pradesh is emerging as an ideal state in India,” Chouhan said at a business roundtable organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry and US-India Strategic Partnership Forum.
“Come and invest in Madhya Pradesh,” he said, as he and his team of officials gave a detailed presentation on the investor friendly policies of the state government.
India, he said is developing at a fast pace. “There is no policy paralysis since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India. Decisions are being taken quickly. There is high growth rate,” he said.
With the implementation of GST or goods and services tax, India has become “as one nation, one tax and one market”, thus opening up new vistas for the businesses and industry, he said.
And with Madhya Pradesh being centrally located, the state government has quickly formulated policies so as to make it the “logistics and manufacturing” hub of the country. From food processing to defense manufacturing, the state government has come out with industry specific policies and the first of its kind investment based incentives in a post-GST India, he said.
The availability of skilled manpower and good law and order makes Madhya Pradesh an ideal destination for businesses and industries to invest in. Demonetisation has ended black money-based economy in the country, he said.
He also claimed Madhya Pradesh has the highest agricultural growth (averaging 20 percent) in the country for the last three years and has major defence manufacturing sites. Food processing is one of the focus areas of his government, he said.
In addition, Madhya Pradesh, with its central location and rapid growth, is quickly becoming a leader in rural and urban development for India, he said. The infrastructure in the state is one of the best, he said, adding that Madhya Pradesh is surplus in electricity.
In Rewa, he said, the world’s largest solar power plant is under construction where the electricity would be sold at a record Rs 2.93 per unit, the cheapest in the world. Referring to his drive from the airport to the city, Chouhan said the roads in Madhya Pradesh seem to be better than that of Washington DC.
In his presentation, principal secretary Mohammed Suleman said that in new GST regime, we are at the best location to take products across the country. Post GST, Madhya Pradesh would be the most attractive destination for manufacturing in Indian he said.
Madhya Pradesh, because of its location, touches almost 50 percent of the country’s population, so any facility which is in Madhya Pradesh can easily transport its manufacturing product to the rest of the country.
The Deputy Indian Ambassador to the US, Santosh Jha, said Chouhan is leading a state that is increasingly setting the bar, adding that increasingly his experimentations in the state are becoming national plans.
