Pradyut Bordoloi: Positive

Guwahati, May 4: Assam industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi today said his department would soon set up an industrial investment secretariat to help and guide investors.

Bordoloi was speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony of an intravenous fluids plant at Changsari.

The stone, however, could not be laid as chief minister Tarun Gogoi, who was supposed to do the honours, could not make it to the function. The foundation stone will be laid tomorrow.

The plant, which is the first of its kind in the region, is a joint venture of the Assam Industrial Development Corporation and Pearl Lifeline Limited, promoted by an NRI from Assam, Naba Goswami. He is co-chairman of the US Physician Advisory Board.

“Investors from outside should not be viewed with suspicion as they have played a crucial role in the industrial development of the country,” Bordoloi said.

Saying that the plant would be equipped with state-of-the-art machinery, Goswami said the company would have a strategic as well as financial advantage as intravenous fluid products are imported by Assam from other parts of the country.

The annual capacity of the unit, to be commissioned in about a year-and-a-half, will be 180 lakh bottles. The total cost of the project is Rs 40 crore, of which the Assam government will pick up an equity of 10 per cent.

“Goswami wanted to come to Assam earlier, but the situation was not favourable then. The scenario has completely changed today, and that is the reason he has come back,” the minister said.

Bordoloi said the attractive incentive package offered in this year’s North East Industrial Policy should be put to best use by industrialists.

Calling the venture “a dream come true”, Goswami said the equity partnership by the state government indicated Dispur’s confidence in the business proposal as well as in the company that will operate and manage the project.

“The company, Pearl Lifeline, will be more attuned to local demands, expectations and operational issues such as floods and other natural calamities, which will allow it to form a closer symbiotic relationship with the people of Assam,” Goswami said.

Goswami left his home state 32 years ago for higher studies in the US.