Mumbai: The Gujarat government landing a Rs 22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project has sparked a fresh blame game between the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
Leaders from the MVA — comprising the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress — have slammed the government for its inability to bring the project to Maharashtra, saying it shows that “industries have no faith in the current dispensation in the state”.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray tweeted: “The khoke sarkar lost Maharashtra one more project. I had long been demanding that the government should make efforts so that the Tata-Airbus project does not go outside Maharashtra. Why are projects from Maharashtra consistently going out of the state for the past three months?”
“It is clear that industrialists have no faith left in the khoke sarkar,” he added.
‘Khoke sarkar’ is a jibe that the opposition parties uses for the coalition government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena to indirectly allege that the Shinde’s Sena faction took monetary favours to topple the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government in June.
The Eknath Shinde-led government, meanwhile, maintains that the agreement between the Centre and the companies for the Tata-Airbus project was inked in 2021, when the MVA government was in power, and that the understanding was it would be set up in the BJP-ruled Gujarat.
“Uddhav Thackeray should seek forgiveness from people for losing the Airbus-Tata project,” the BJP Maharashtra said in a series of tweets. “Airbus Tata went to Gujarat because Uddhav Thackeray locked himself up at home for 2.5 years,” it said, indirectly taunting the former CM for working from home, first due to the Covid pandemic and then due to health issues.
The Tata-Airbus project is the third major investment in the last three months to go to Gujarat despite the Maharashtra government’s efforts to bring the projects in the state. Some of the Centre’s other moves, too, have been indirectly detrimental to Maharashtra and favourable to Gujarat.
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The Tata-Airbus project
On Thursday, the Union government announced that Tata and Airbus will make C-295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force and the project will be based in Gujarat. In September 2021, the defence ministry had signed a Rs 22,000-crore contract with Airbus and Defence & Space for production of 56 C-295s. While Gujarat was under consideration, the location of the manufacturing unit was not finalised.
The Maharashtra government was trying to bring the project to Nagpur’s MIHAN (Multimodal International Cargo Hub and Airport Nagpur), and Tata officials had also undertaken a site visit, an official from the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) told ThePrint. He, however, did not specify when the visit was made.
After losing the Vedanta-Foxconn investment to Gujarat in September, Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant had said that his government would try to get the Tata-Airbus project to the state.
Vedanta-Foxconn
Last month, the Gujarat government signed an agreement with a joint venture of Vedanta with Taiwanese Foxconn to set up a semiconductor and display fabrication plant. The news came as a big blow to the Eknath Shinde-led government, which was in advanced stages of negotiations for the Rs 1.5-lakh crore investment.
Maharashtra had been lobbying for the investment since 2015 and the state government had even finalised a land parcel in Talegaon for the facility. The plant would have not only generated direct employment, but also aided the development of allied industries.
Like for the Tata-Airbus deal, the Shinde government blames the erstwhile MVA government for not aggressively chasing the investment.
Bulk drug park
The Union government had proposed to set up three bulk drug parks in India and sought proposals from states, promising a grant of Rs 1,000 crore for each of them.
On 1 September, the Centre granted in-principle approval to the proposals sent by Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
Maharashtra was a major contender for one of the parks for which it had even identified land at Roha and Murud talukas of Raigad district for the project.
After facing flak for losing the Vedanta-Foxconn project, Samant had announced that the state government would develop the bulk drug park on its own and was ready to invest Rs 5,000 crore and seek investment of up to Rs 50,000 crore.
IFSC
The Maharashtra government has been trying to set up an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Mumbai’s plush Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) business district since 2015 when BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was the chief minister.
However, the state government needs to get a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) tag for the IFSC to attract companies. It has been trying to get the same concessions granted to the IFSC like those enjoyed by the GIFT City in Gujarat, known to be PM Modi’s pet project, but not been successful in getting the tag so far.
Sources in the state government told ThePrint that the Centre is wary of creating competition for the GIFT City.
The BKC station for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project was to come up at the chosen site of the IFSC in Mumbai. However, the then Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government negotiated for the bullet train station to be built underground so that there is scope for the IFSC to be implemented above.
Diamond bourse
Gujarat is developing a glitzy diamond hub in Surat spread across 2,000 acre that will be inaugurated by PM Modi when it is complete. With its own customs clearance, the Surat Diamond Bourse will have nine 16-floor towers that are expected to house nearly 4,400 merchants and employ about 1.5 lakh people.
The hub is seen as a potential threat to the diamond bourse in Mumbai. Moreover, the Surat Diamond Bourse has also been trying to incentivise diamond traders from Mumbai to shift their businesses to the city in Gujarat.
Last month, Modi had said that the Gujarat government’s Diamond Research and Mercantile (DREAM) City project, under which the diamond bourse is being constituted, will ensure Surat becomes the world’s safest and most convenient diamond trading hub.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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