To ensure Himachal improves its ranking for ease of doing business, all basic facilities will be provided to entrepreneurs in the state and efforts would be made to attract more investments by easing the single window clearances, said Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.

He was addressing the Himachal Pradesh State Annual Session 2017-18, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Himachal Chapter, in Shimla on Thursday evening.

“HP has vast potential for employment and entrepreneurship in thrust sectors of hydro, tourism and horticulture,” he said, adding that the government intended to ease complexities being faced by hydro industry.

Tourism potential of the state would be fully exploited to make HP a favourite tourist destination in real term, he said, adding that all the hurdles would be removed in way of investment in these sectors.

Thakur said the government planned to create a conducive atmosphere with an adequate support system for nurturing entrepreneurship and encouraging the youth to become a ‘job creator instead of job seeker’.

He lauded the efforts of CII for running various capacity building programmes on soft skills, Human Resource management etc. adding that CII had been a strong Institute for learning by sharing of expertise, across the country.

He said though industrial package was over, still the government will create new opportunities in this sector and achieve better results.

“I have experienced that those who want to invest in Hydel generation were facing lots of hurdles and were finding difficulty in getting clearances. The enthusiasm with which they invested in hydro sector was now at the lowest ebb and we would try to remove all the impediments in their way,” said Thakur.

He said that state government would provide transparent, entrepreneur friendly and responsive governance to investors. He also sought their suggestions for easing the norms for setting up of industrial units which could provide more employment opportunities to the people of the state.

The state government would sympathetically consider providing competitive power tariff vis-à-vis neighbouring states and assured optimising regulatory framework with defined guidelines for timely clearances and integrating various departments with the Single Window Clearance System.

CM also released the report ‘Himachal Pradesh Industry Beyond 2020, The Road Ahead’ on the occasion.