Ranchi: The Jharkhand Government plans to come out with a new industrial and rehabilitation policy in April.

"The industrial and rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) policy draft has almost been completed and will be announced by the second week of April," Deputy Chief Minister and Industries Department In-charge Sudhir Mahto informed the house yesterday.

Jharkhand currently has no R&R policy and the industrial policy that was announced in August 2002 has already lapsed.

The deputy chief minister also informed the house that the government signed 64 MoUs in the last six years.

"Seven companies purchased land and started production work by setting up industries in the state. Of the 26 companies that applied for land, 10 applications have been sent to the district administration to arrange for the land," Mahto said.

To translate the MoUs into reality, the state government has to acquire more than 100,000 acres of land.

Jharkhand is drafting a lucrative R&R policy to attract landowners and convince them to voluntarily part with their plots to facilitate industrialisation in the state as land acquisition has emerged as a major bottleneck.

"Many changes have been made in the previous industrial policy. The previous one talked about incentives to investors who will pump Rs.500 million into the state. Now we have investors who are ready to pump a billion rupees at one go. The incentive level has been changed," an industry department official said.

"The new industrial policy has been drafted considering the competition among the Indian states to attract investors," he said.

In Jharkhand, 20 percent of the population was displaced over major industrial projects, including those of the Tata Steel, the Bokaro Steel Plant and the Heavy Engineering Corporation besides coal mining and other projects.