Punjab Finance Minister demands pharma park in Bathinda

Chandigarh, July 14 (KNN) Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal has met Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers DV Sadananda Gowda and demanded to build a national pharmaceutical park in Bathinda.

The Finance Minister on Monday informed the Union Minister that Bathinda is the best-positioned destination to set up a pharmaceutical park, and a tranche of 1,350 acres of land is readily available for the venture. Earlier, the land was occupied by the erstwhile Bathinda Thermal plant.

While urging Gowda to depute a team to visit the site, Badal said, ''the proposed park in Bathinda could cater to the entire area north of Delhi, reaching out to Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, neighbouring Rajasthan, and even Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.”

''The pharma ecosystem in Punjab is scalable as it is home to some of the biggest USFDA approved pharmaceutical companies like Sun Pharma, Centrient and IOL Chemicals,'' he added.

''The research and development ecosystem of Punjab is bolstered by the presence of ace institutes like NIPER, IISER, Institute of Microbial Research, Institute of Nano Technology and AIIMS,'' an official statement quoted Badal as saying.

''This will be hugely beneficial to those companies desirous of setting up business in Punjab,'' the statement added.