Indore, Aug 31 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh government is working on a plan to revive 1,000 sick units that were closed due to various reasons, a state minister said on Monday.

“We are going to try restoring production in 1,000 sick units. The ones that got closed due to financial crisis, production techniques, market factors, labour issues and other genuine reasons, and their owners want to restart them,” state Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Omprakash Sakhalecha told reporters here.

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With the government's encouragement, the sick units should get an opportunity to restart production. “We are going to chart out a firm policy for this,” he said.

The minister said that to reduce imports from China, clusters of toy, furniture, electrical equipment and medicines manufacturing units will be encouraged in the state.

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He said the state government was trying to woo investments in defence production.

“We had a talk with Defence Research and Development Origination (DRDO). We are going to hold a big seminar with DRDO either in Indore or Bhopal in the next 45 days,” he added.

Sakhlecha said the defence products that have potential of being manufactured in the state will be displayed at the seminar.

“We want to see export-orientated defence production units coming up in the state with the help of the DRDO,” he added.

The minister said that the possibilities are being explored to fine-tune soybean products' output in line with international standards to boost exports to Japan.

The state was the biggest soybean producer in India.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)