Shillong, Mar 14: The state government has signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) worth Rs 2,957 crore with various private investors.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma told reporters on Thursday that this is in line with the Meghalaya Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy (MIIPP) 2024.
The chief minister said nine MoUs were inked in the past one week and they are on different areas like tourism to food processing to different areas of technology and even some areas of pharmaceuticals and also in terms of beverages in some areas.
“In fact today we will officially sign two more proposals and one will be with Varun beverages which is the holding company that runs the different Pepsi plants all over the country. Roughly about Rs 180 plus crore is going to be invested by Pepsi to put up a Pepsi Plant for supply of Pepsi and other products in Meghalaya as well as in other parts of the country especially in North Bengal and other parts of Assam,” he said.
The chief minister said an MoU will also be signed with the Northeast United for putting up their first residential football academy in Mawkhanu.
“As you are aware John Abraham himself is here today. He has gone to see the land parcel which the government is giving to them where the Northeast United Residential training football Training Academy will come up,” he said.
The companies which signed MoUs promising investments in Meghalaya also include Ramky Infrastructure Ltd (Rs 2000 Cr), Polo Towers Group (Rs 465 Cr), Sonar Bangla Group (90 Cr), Quadra Infratel Synergies Pvt Ltd (Rs 100 Cr), Seven Sister Resources (Rs 1 Cr), Playmaker Labs (Rs 1.2 Cr), AI Genix (Rs 100 Cr), Lallooji & Sons (Rs 100 Cr), and Varun Beverages Ltd (Rs 100 Cr).
The chief minister said the government envisions bringing about Rs 8,340 crore of investments through incentives of Rs 700 crore + SGST reimbursement.
Conrad said, “In order to achieve the 10 billion dollar economy, we have calculated that we require a minimum of 1 billion dollars in terms of private investment that we need to achieve, which will then add to the overall 10 billion target that we have.”
“The government of Meghalaya will be roughly spending and budgeting about close to Rs 700 crore to be given as different incentives to the different companies who will invest,” he added.
Conrad said over 50,000 direct and indirect job opportunities will be created in Meghalaya through the implementation of the new industrial policy. This will be in addition to the 40,000 jobs created through the CM Elevate program.
The policy focuses on the local youth employment as it mandates investors to employ domiciles of Meghalaya to avail the incentives of the policy.
Moreover, employee-related incentives are also included in the MIIPP, 2024 in the form of EPF benefits.
