Airports
The state capital, Chandigarh has
excellent air services, linking with New Delhi, Srinagar,
Kulu, Shimla etc. Ludhiana and Amritsar also have daily
air services to New Delhi. Amritsar airport is an international
airport. By air, from Delhi one can reach any city in Punjab
within two hours.
Well connected airports at Chandigarh, Amritsar & Ludhiana.
Air Cargo Complex at Amritsar.
Inland container depot at Ludhiana
Container freight station at Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar,
Bombay container freight station Bathinda ,Also planned
at Rajpura.
Financial
There are 2,478 branches of scheduled
commercial banks in Punjab. The state is also served by
a network of 635 branches of the Punjab State Cooperative
Bank. On an average, each branch services a population of
9,414, an area of 24 square kilometers or a cluster of five
villages.
Punjab Financial Corporation
The PFC has been established under
the State Financial Corporation Act,1951,for providing medium
and long term loans to small and medium scale industrial
undertakings in the state of Punjab under various schemes.
It generally grants term loans for creation/acquisition
of fixed assets like land ,building, plant and machinery,
provides guarantee against deferred payments for the purchase
of capital goods and offers underwriting facility on issue
of stocks and shares to companies. The Corporation also
provides financial assistance for setting up of Hotels,
Nursing Homes/small hospitals, IT Industries, development
of industrial estates and purchase of transport vehicles
etc. The Corporation has sanctioned (effective) and disbursed
loans of Rs.1087 crores and Rs.1031 crores respectively
upto March 2002 more than 13500 units.
Bank of Punjab Ltd.
Bank of Punjab opened its first branch at Chandigarh, in
April 1995. In a short span of 8 years, the Bank added many
firsts to its credit :
The first bank to focus on retail banking.
The first bank in north India to install a state-of-the
Art ATM payment gateway allowing on line transactions. Till
today, the only such gateway in North India.
The first bank to have introduced faxbanking and telebanking
for its customers.
Leveraging the strength of technology, the First bank to
offer extended banking hours to its customers.
Realizing the importance of Human Resources, the First amongst
peer banks to set up a residential fully equipped training
Institute.
The first bank to have transferred technology to the masses.
Bank of Punjab has a wide area network of branches across
the country. Customers in excess of 55,63,07 serviced by
a team of 961 dedicated professionals. The bank has established
correspondent banking relationships across 60 countries.
Bank of Punjab being an authorized dealer of foreign exchange
can cater to a variety of international business. The services
offered, the efficiency and delivery channels are at par
with international standards.
Financial Institutions
The various public and private sector
financial institutions in the State perform the important
task of providing adequate monetary back-up to the risk-taking
entrepreneur. Of these, two of the most important institutions
are the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation,
the nodal agency for promoting and financing large and medium
scale industries, and the Punjab Financial Corporation for
the small and medium scale units.
The Punjab State Cooperative Agriculture
Development Bank Ltd.
Punjab State Cooperative
Agricultural Development Bank Ltd. is the apex body of 70
Primary Cooperative Agricultural Development Banks which
make long-term loans to farmers to enable them to make capital
investment in agriculture and allied activities, including
land improvement and better methods of cultivation.
At first the bank advanced loans to enable farmers to pay
off old debts and purchase of land so as to make their holdings
economically viable. Later, the Bank provided loans for
improvement of alkaline and saline lands, for purchase of
tractors, tubewells and other modern agricultural equipment.
The bank played its role for the diversification of agriculture
by providing loans to the farmers for various occupations
like dairy, poultry, fishery, horticulture, etc. Today,
every third tubewell and every fourth tractor is financed
by this bank.
The Punjab Cooperative
Cotton Marketing & Spinning Mills Federation Ltd.(SPINFED)
Punjab is famous for producing large
quantities of high quality cotton. Spinfed, an apex body
of cooperative spinning mills in Punjab, was started in
1980 and today has seven mills, located in the cotton
belt. The mills have a spindlage capacity of 1.3 lacs
and 2280 rottors. 7,000 persons are directly employed
in the mills and the annual turnover is about Rs 200 crore.
At present, Spinfed and its member mills are in profit:
Rs 260 lac cash profit up to October, 1997.
As a cotton-marketing federation, Spinfed purchases cotton
directly from the farmers and markets it either as raw
material or yarn. Up to now Punjab cotton is exported,
but plans for domestic cotton-marketing are being formulated.
Roads
The state's Public Works Department
(Building and Roads) has been at work since 1854 constructing
and maintaining roads, bridges and buildings. Its aim
is to achieve high standards of construction at the most
economical cost and it is quick to adapt new methods toward
this end. Road construction in Punjab is mechanised. Hot
mix plants, paver finishers and tandem vibratory rollers
have replaced manual methods and are in line with the
latest road construction and maintenance practices worldwide.
Similarly, bridge construction methods have been brought
at par with the latest technology by using strands pre
stressing and other technology. This has resulted in quicker,
better and more economical execution to civil works.
Highest Surface Length/100sq Km. 95 Km.
All villages connected by metalled roads.
Major towns of adjoining states connected by National
Highways.
Road network 47,605 km
Percentage of villages connected by metalled roads 97
Punjab has two types of Roads :-
Plan Roads
Punjab's arterial roads are called Plan Roads. They are
the most vital segment of the state highway network. The
combined length of these roads is 7305 kms. Some of these
roads owing to their importance are being elevated to
the status of National Highways. These are few of those:
Kiratpur Sahib-Anandpur Sahib-Nangal Road
Chandigarh-Patiala-Sangrur-Barnala-Bhatinda Road
Kharar-Ludhiana-Moga-Ferozepur Road
Ropar-Hoshiarpur-Dasuya-Mukerian-Gurdaspur-Kathua Road
Jalandhar-Nakodar-Moga-Sangrur-Patran-Narwana-Rohtak-Delhi
Road
Bathinda-Fatehabad Road
Link Roads
One of the major reasons for tremendous development in
agriculture has been these link roads to all villages
of Punjab. These all weather black top road has been used
by the enterprising farmers of Punjab carry their farm
inputs to their villages and transporting the grain back
to the market to feed the country. The state has constructed
31,657 kms of link roads and these are a very expensive
state asset. Maintaining these roads have always been
a challenge for the state and Punjab has been able to
do this job very well. Punjab is the only state in the
country where even link roads are given renewal coat with
premix carpet. This premix carpet is laid with the help
of hot mix plant, paver finisher and other machinery avoiding
manual processes to a very great extent. This gives better
quality, quicker progress and smoother roads which in
turn reduce vehicle operating cost.
Railways
All major towns and district headquarters have excellent
rail links for both passenger and goods traffic. Chandigarh,
Ludhiana, Amritsar, Ferozepur and Jalandhar are on the
main line and have excellent daily train services to New
Delhi including convenient overnight trains. Super fast
Shatabdi Express trains connect Delhi to Chandigarh (a
comfortable three-hour trip) and Delhi to Amritsar via
Ludhiana (equally comfortable and just a little less than
six hours). The Shan-e-Punjab train links Amritsar and
New Delhi, the Himalayan Queen links Chandigarh and New
Delhi and there are numerous trains from Jammu / Amritsar,
linking these towns as well as Ludhiana and Jalandhar
with New Delhi.
Power
Highest per capita generation in the country, which is
2.5 times the national average. Quality power without
power cuts is available at cheaper rates. Future planned
projects ensure easy availability. Concessional tariff
for night loads has been introduced in the state. Punjab
has surplus electricity and industry gets electric connections
without any delay subject to system constraints. The quality
of power is also far better than any state in the Northern
India and the tariff is one of the lowest. The generation
of power continues to get priority treatment from the
state. All 12,484 villages in Punjab have been electrified
since 1974.
Telecom
Telephone and Allied facilities
are available to all cities and small towns. It is possible
to directly dial for International calls from a large
number of villages also.
Brief facts
Total equipped capacity of 10,52,065
lines
Total number of telephone lines working in Punjab Telecom
.8,90,495 lines
Number of telephone exchanges1004 Trunk Automatic Exchange(TAX)56Klines
Subscriber Trunk Dialing facility available from 794 exchanges
All the 17 Districts headquarters and 70 Tehsil Headquarters
have been connected with STD facility as on date.
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