Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
* Announces MRO facility to come up in Mohali
*Says incubators and world players in life sciences to be important part of proposed Mohali Biotech Park
* GMR evinces interest in taking up greenfield airport project at Ludhiana
Chandigarh/Hyderabad, Punjab Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today visited infrastructure giant GMR’s MRO facility at the international airport here besides the Genome valley life sciences park with the aim of establishing similar facilities at Mohali.
While GMADA proposes to establish a MRO facility at the Mohali international airport to create a North Indian hub for maintenance of aircraft, the Punjab government wants to establish bio tech incubators and manufacturing facilities at its Biotech Park site in Mohali.
“My aim is to establish a world class MRO facility at Mohali which will not only cater to the Delhi airport but will also eventually become a maintenance hub for the South East Asia region”, Mr Badal said while interacting with GMR CEO Uday Naidu today afternoon. He was given a brief presentation on the MRO facility established here by GMR and also toured the facility to understand its operations hands on.
The GMR group also evinced interest in taking part in a competitive bid to establish a greenfield airport at Ludhiana on the occasion.
Mr Badal also visited the Genome valley at Turkapally near here during the course of which he interacted with the management of IKP Park and Alexandria Park.
At the IPK Knowledge Park Mr Badal was given a detailed presentation on how the facility had developed into a centre which housed 76 companies which were doing research on life sciences and had already resulted in 110 start ups and 200 patents. Mr Badal invited IPK to provide technical assistance to the Punjab government for establishing a Biotech park on 70 acres of land at Mohali. Park CEO and MD Deepanwita Chattopadhyay assured full cooperation in this regard.
During the course of interactions at the IPK Park and the Alexandria Park experts spoke about the dire need of establishing a centre for research in life sciences while stressing that there was no such quality centre in North India. Mr Badal assured that research on life sciences would form an important aspect of the biotech park. The Deputy CM said the government would work on a healthy mix of incubators and manufacturers for the Mohali biotech park with the twin objective of encouraging start ups as well as ensuring the major international players could be a part of the Park.
A team of technical experts from KPMG led by Mr Utkarsh Pal Nitkar, senior officers including Mr Anirudh Tewari, Mr Karan Avtar Singh, Mr D K Tewari and Mr Manvesh Sidhu besides Media Advisor to the Deputy CM – Jangveer Singh also accompanied Mr Badal. EOM
