Mumbai: Ten months after the State government signed MoUs with investors worth Rs 8,00,000 crore at the Make In India Week, the most recent assessment of agreements signed shows major projects worth Rs. 1,50,000 crore have not moved beyond the discussion table. Among the reasons given are lack of land, and road and rail connectivity. The deals in limbo include global electronics giant Foxconn’s promised investment of Rs. 30,000 crore, Twin Star Display Technologies Ltd’s Rs. 60,000-crore investment in Nagpur and assured investments of Rs. 1,200 crore by Gujarat Aluminium Foils, Navi Mumbai Smart City Project, Sunstream City Pvt Ltd and the Broadway Integrated Park by Mutha Realty.
Officials, however, said most major investors are waiting for suitable land options, including Foxconn and Twin Star, as are Broadway Integrated Park and the Joshi group with assured investment of Rs. 1,500 crore investment. “Land has been identified for most of these projects, but land allotment files are waiting clearance from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC),” a senior government official said.
At the end of the Make in India Week in February, the State government had claimed to have received assurances of investment worth Rs 8,00,000 crore by signing as many as 2,984 MoUs with national and international firms.
Prakash Reddy, State secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI), said, “It is assumed that these MoUs are signed and will result in investment. But if we see, there has been no accountability and there is no follow-up to take these agreements to a logical conclusion. Every year, there is a lot of noise (over MoUs); the Jaitapur plant MoU was signed in 2005. but what is the progress? So, just because an MoU has been signed doesn’t mean progress and employment will take place. Make in India is a failure and land, electricity have been given cheap to the companies without any purpose and accountability.”
Of the 2,512 MoUs inked with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), 46 per cent are still at the first stage of deliberations. Only 14 per cent of these are in the under-construction stage while 22 per cent are in the production stage. Officials said maximum projects are concentrated in the Pune region, with as many as 799 investors demanding land around Pune and surrounding areas.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced during the Make in India Week that the event had made a mark in the country’s history and set a standard which “we will now have to match or even better”.
Most projects in the tourism sector including for theme parks and hotels are stuck for environment clearance. For example, the SK Theme Park, proposed to be set up at Palghar, is on hold after being sanctioned by the State government. “There was a new notification regarding the Coastal Regulation Zone which has blocked the project,” an industries department official said. Proposals worth Rs. 15,000 crore are stuck in the tourism sector, the report estimates.
