Maharashtra gets lion’s share of Rs 15 lakh crore MII investment
India received investment commitments worth Rs 15.20 lakh crore from domestic and foreign manufacturers during ‘Make in India’ week, providing a major boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign to turn India into a global manufacturing hub. The week-long summit, flagged off by the Prime Minister on February 13, also saw the host state, Maharashtra, walking away with over Rs 8 lakh crore, or 52 per cent, of the proposed investments.
Speaking to reporters on the concluding day, Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), said the summit was a phenomenal hit as the investment proposals received were much more than what the government had anticipated.
Expressing confidence that 85 per cent to 90 per cent of the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) would be converted into actual investments, Mr Kant said the aim is to have at least 10 states that could grow at over 12 per cent per annum, with Maharashtra becoming the gateway for the rest of the country. Stating that at least 30 per cent of the total investment commitments were from foreign manufacturers, Mr Kant added that it would take at least 18 months to three years for the actual execution of these projects.
Seeking to increase the share of the manufacturing sector in India’s GDP from 15 per cent at present to 25 per cent by 2022, Mr Kant said, “We have already opened the economy across sectors to the world. We are now showcasing, connecting and collaborating for manufacturing in the country. The summit is not just about manufacturing alone, but Indians turning innovators and Indians turning inventors”.
Some of the important investment deals concluded during the six-day event include an agreement between Sterlite Group company TwinStar Display Technologies and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for an LCD manufacturing unit in technical collaboration with Autron of Taiwan, a $700 million agreement between BAE Systems and Mahindra Group for assembling and testing of M777 ultra lightweight howitzers, $400 million investment by Oracle to set up nine incubation centres, Trivitron’s health care manufacturing unit in Chennai, a windmill blades manufacturing unit at Ahmedabad by Denmark-based Vestas, and an ocean-based renewable energy project by French company Tar Kovacs Systems in Karnataka.
