Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani today held discussions with Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal after which he announced his interest in increasing broadband connectivity in Punjab.
The Deputy CM also initiated talks with software giant Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) to take citizen services to the doorstep of the people through “Punjab Online” programme that would cover every village panchayat in the state. Ambani expressed his eagerness to take up a petro-chemical project, expand its facility in Hoshiarpur and to invest in agro-processing in Punjab.
Sukhbir invited TCS to invest in the IT Park, Mohali. Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry said he would ask his team to visit Punjab and consider the proposal.
The Reliance Group head also agreed to attend the Progressive Punjab Investment Summit being held on December 9-10. Sukhbir briefed Ambani about the incentives being given on value-added tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST), whereby companies investing in the state could retain as much as 80 per cent of the taxes for a period of 10 years. Ambani said his company was ready to provide broadband connectivity to all schools and hospitals in the state at a nominal cost. He said this initiative had the potential to change lives. Ambani also said his company wanted to train more than a million diploma engineers in home services, to help them develop real-time skills and create jobs in this sector.
At the TCS campus here, company vice-president Tanmoy Chakraborty and his team gave a presentation on the proposed “Punjab Online” encapsulating the services needed by every citizen at the village and the ward level.
Chakrabarty said the programme would result in jobs for at least 25,000 persons. The services offered would include birth and death certificates, school admission forms, examination results, vehicle registration, passport verification, marriage certificate, utility services and provision of land records. The company also offered to manage healthcare services on a turnkey basis for an inventory of medical records, online update of bed capacity and online claims/payments.
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