Mumbai: Facing fire from the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) for allegedly losing big-ticket projects to neighbouring Gujarat, the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government is working overtime to change the narrative, holding frequent meetings of the cabinet sub-committee on industries and rapidly approving multi-crore investment proposals.
The state government, comprising the Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been approving pending investment proposals and signing new memorandums of understanding (MoUs), while its leaders have been attending investment summits.
The state industries department has held two meetings of the cabinet sub-committee on infrastructure in the past two months, compated to one meeting in 18 months during the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government’s tenure, state industries minister Uday Samant told reporters Tuesday.
In the most recent meeting held Tuesday, the committee approved investment proposals worth Rs 62,000 crore. Of these, four projects worth Rs 6,950 crore were brought to Maharashtra during Devendra Fadnavis’s tenure as Maharashtra CM from November 2014 to October 2019, and the rest were sealed by the current administration, according to state government information. Fadnavis is currently deputy CM.
Samant, a Shinde camp MLA from Ratnagiri, said, “Not a single project from the Shinde-Fadnavis government has gone out of Maharashtra. We are coming out with a white paper on it. We will constitute a three-member committee under a retired judge. But despite this wrong narrative, we haven’t kept shut. In two months, we have brought Rs 62,000 crore worth of investment in Maharashtra.”
“This is a partial response to the fake narrative that was being spread about the Shinde-Fadnavis government. Many big projects are yet to come,” Samant said.
The MVA, comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Congress, has been targeting the Shinde-led government for allegedly losing key investments to Gujarat due to the state government’s political instability and pressure from the Narendra Modi-led central government.
The Gujarat government had clinched the Rs 1.5-lakh crore Vedanta-Foxconn investment to set up a semiconductor and display fabrication plant, and a Rs 22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project for the production of 56 C-295 aircraft, in September and October respectively. While the MVA lambasted the Shinde government for “losing” the projects to Gujarat, the ruling alliance put the blame on the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA administration.
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Investment approvals
In Tuesday’s meeting of the cabinet sub-committee on industries, with Shinde and Fadnavis both present, the state government approved a Rs 10,000 crore project of Mahindra Electric Vehicle automobiles, supposedly its first in the country, in Pune. Samant said, “In the next two months, for expansion, they (Mahindra) will be spending another Rs 6000 crore in Nashik and Pune.”
Among other major projects, the cabinet sub-committee also approved a Rs 20,000 crore investment for a coal gasification plant based on green technology by Nuera Cleantech Solutions Private Limited at Chandrapur, and another Rs 14,000 crore investment by Lloyds Metals Energy Limited in the Naxal-hit Gadchiroli district.
Other major investments approved Tuesday include a Rs 4,000 crore plasma protein vaccine plant in Nashik, a Rs 4,206-crore investment by Reliance Life Sciences, another Rs 1,925 crore by Indorama Synthetic, Rs 1,650 crore by Nipro Pharma and so on.
A statement by the state industries department Tuesday said, “Along with these main projects, (and) along with other projects, a total of Rs 70,000 crore with an expected 55,000 jobs are planned for Maharashtra in the coming days.”
In last month’s sub-committee meeting, the state government approved projects worth Rs 25,368.64 crore, including a Rs 20,000 crore paper manufacturing project by Indonesia-based Sinar Mas Pulp & Paper Private Limited in Raigad district.
State industries minister Samant said, “Simply signing MoUs is not enough. These deals need to be seen through, for which it is important to hold meetings of the cabinet sub-committee. The previous government held one meeting in 18 months.”
Mahesh Tapase, chief spokesperson of the NCP, told ThePrint, “In this blame game, the development of Maharashtra should not suffer. The MVA faced a test due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The sentiment of investors was down. By the time we recovered, in six months the government changed.”
“If investment is coming now, we would like to welcome it. But, it should not remain just on paper. We are here to support development,” he added.
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More in the pipeline
Samant said the projects approved by the industries cabinet sub-committee are just the ones that have already been discussed with the Maharashtra government and more foreign investments are in the offing, especially at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is scheduled to be held in January 2023.
Last week, Shinde met the chief executive of US-based Triton EV to discuss setting up of a manufacturing plant for hydrogen-powered vehicles in the state. The CM said Maharashtra would sign an MoU with Triton in this regard at Davos next year.
An official from the chief minister’s office said, “We have already had preliminary talks for many MoUs that will be signed at Davos across sectors. These will be announced at the right time.”
Meanwhile, the CM and deputy CM have been attending industry conferences and holding meetings with associations to boost investment. For instance, earlier this month, Fadnavis met with the Sweden-India Business Council to discuss opportunities in green energy, skilling, filmmaking, animation and so on. Similarly, Shinde addressed a coal mines industry conclave organised by the Union government earlier this month, highlighting the potential of regions in Maharashtra such as Konkan and Vidarbha to the investors.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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