Assocham suggests Uttarakhand to form panel to monitor project implementation

Industry body Assocham urged the Uttarakhand government to form a special investment monitoring task force to ensure timely and effective implementation of projects worth over Rs 2 lakh crore.

"Speeding up implementation of projects through target setting must be the mandate and the chief minister should immediately constitute a committee of senior ministers and bureaucrats to oversee pace of projects' implementation and address environmental, land acquisition and other related issues...," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said while addressing a press conference.

"The state should accord more importance to implementing investment intentions as even if about half of these get implemented, it would help create 30,000 direct and indirect jobs across the state in the next five years," Rawat said.

He also released an Assocham study titled 'Uttarakhand: Economic Growth and Investment Performance Analysis'.

The state government must focus on upskilling the people thereby making them more employable as that would help deal with challenges of growing migration to greener pastures in search of jobs, he added.

Uttarakhand's economy has grown at 7.1 percent CAGR between FY12 and FY17, higher than the national average of 6.9 per cent clocked during the same period, he said.

Though agriculture and allied activities are the mainstays of over 51 percent of the state's total workforce as per Census 2011, the sector's contribution to its economy declined from 12.3 percent in FY12 to 8.9 percent in FY17.

The contribution of the industrial sector to Uttarakhand’s economy has remained at about 52 percent during both FY12 and FY17, but the state has topped in terms industrial sector growth by clocking a CAGR of 7.3 percent during the period.

Promotion of food processing industries, bolstering sector-specific infrastructure like warehouses, cold storages and others to avoid spoilage of perishable products will further strengthen the industrial scenario of Uttarakhand, the Assocham report said.

Terming the state's performance in the services sector as 'encouraging', it suggested that policymakers should aim for expanding segments like tourism and IT.