OUR CORPORATE BUREAUMUMBAI, July 24: Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela on Thursday called upon industrialists and the business community to invest in the state's social infrastructure.

He exhorted businessmen to become the partner in people's progress and act as trustees of their neighbourhoods. "We want you to provide simple facilities, as much as possible, to the people around you in the form of roads, mobile dispensaries, drinking water pipeline and educational facilities," Vaghela said.

The chief minister was addressing a seminar - Industrial and infrastructure investment opportunities in Gujarat - in Mumbai on Thursday. He headed a high-level team comprising industries and tourism minister Dilip Parekh, finance minister Babubhai Shah, chief secretary L N S Mukundan, additional chief secretary (industry and mining) C K Koshy, industries commissioner Ashok Chawla and Industrial Extension Bureau executive director BV Jha. Vaghela also spoke on a similar subject at the Indian Merchant's Chamber.

He warned that his government does not want industries at the cost of the people's welfare and natural resources. "We want new industries to be energy-efficient which will have to concentrate on ways to get maximum production out of one unit of electricity," he stressed. Vaghela said industries should start training schools to train the people in their neighbourhood. On infrastructure development, Vaghela said a whopping $40 billion was required and it would be raised through private sector participation. The Infrastructure Development Board, under his chairmanship, has been set up and a single-window system has been introduced for clearing projects up to Rs 1,000 crore in a month. He said Gujarat's installed power generation capacity would be increased from 6,554 MW to 15,000 MW in five years. Nine power projects with a capacity of 2,000 MW would be commissioned in 18 months. In addition to this, effective utilisation of existing power stations would generate an additional 800mw by September 1998. Vaghela said his government had recently finalised agreements for ten small local power stations aggregating 510mw via small stations to avoid line losses. "The power projects based on imported coal, lignite, gas and naphtha or any other alternative fuel is our priority. Besides, we will allow captive power generation in a big way," he said.

Parekh said projects with an investment of Rs 1,30,414 crore were being implemented. Of these, 147 were of over Rs 100 crore with an investment of Rs 97,761 crore. "In terms of investment recorded in Industrial Entrepreneurs Memoranda, Gujarat's position has been consistently at the top for some time now," he said.

Parekh said the government has identified 10 ports for development of which four would be developed by government as joint ventures. The rest would be taken up by the private sector. "Our master plan calls for an increase in port capabilities to handle 100 million tonnes of cargo by 2000," he maintained.

He said high-technology, electronics, software development, tourism and hotel industries would also be developed. The software technology park at Gandhinagar would be dedicated to the nation next month providing an ideal and relatively cheap venue for software companies.

Shah said the state would receive Rs 3,500 crore from the Asian Development Bank. This would mainly be used for infrastructure development. Efforts would also be made to seek financial assistance from the Exim Bank of Japan, he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.