Bengal mulls single incentive scheme for all depts to rope in investors

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State government is preparing a single incentive scheme for all departments to rope in investors. At present different departments offer different sops to investors. It has been found that sometimes the different incentive schemes followed by departments create complications and confusion among investors.

At times, scheme of one department is contradictory to that offered by another department while sometimes lack of information leaves the sops unnoticed. Thus to bring in more clarity, the state government has decided to come up with a single incentive scheme instead of the department wise schemes.

The existing incentive schemes and sops will be brought under a single umbrella. The proposed single incentive scheme will comprise all benefits that are offered by the different departments in a systematic and simplified manner.

“The move is aimed at roping in more and more investors by presenting all incentives under a single policy. “Once the investors have a clear knowledge about the various schemes and sops that are in place, it will be easier to convince them to invest in the state,” said an official.

To begin with, the state government has set up Committee of Secretaries to frame the single incentive scheme. Headed by state chief secretary Moloy De, the committee has eight members.

They are the principal secretaries and additional chief secretaries of the departments namely commerce and industry, miicro and small scale industries, IT, food processing, finance, fisheries, animal resource development and power.

The effort comes at a time when the state claims to have got a huge success at the recently concluded two-day Bengal Global Business Summit.

This time, the state government has received an investment proposal worth Rs 2.19 lakh crore and signed over 110 MOUs among which many are with foreign companies. The next time, the summit will be held in two parts ~ the world business summit will be organised on the first day and the second day will have the convention.

The proposed incentive scheme is aimed at attracting more investors to Bengal by that time, added the official.