At the personal initiative of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the Central government has sanctioned two common facility centres (CFCs) worth Rs 30 crore to facilitate industrial development in Punjab, it was announced on Thursday.
The CFCs were approved by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises at a meeting in New Delhi.
While one CFC for manufacturing oil expellers would be established in Ludhiana, the other would be a foundry and general engineering cluster in Phagwara town, a government spokesperson told IANS.
To be developed at a cost of Rs 15 crore each, the two CFCs would become operational within 24 months.
The oil expeller manufacturing CFC, which would be instrumental in boosting the export potential from Rs 100 crore to Rs 250 crore annually, will generate employment for 2,000 to 3,500 people.
The Phagwara centre, the first of its kind in northern India, will produce aluminium-based engines to replace the conventional cast iron-based diesel engines, which are commonly used in agricultural pump sets for irrigation and de-watering the waterlogged areas.
With this new technology based on aluminium die, Punjab's farmers would be immensely benefited as their input cost per acre would be reduced drastically by Rs 6,000 per acre.
To be equipped with the latest integrix-300 machine for manufacturing aluminium die engine, it will not only meet the local demand of engines but also supply its surplus production in other parts of the country, thus competing with China and Japan in this segment of engines.
--IANS
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