Magnetic Maharashtra summit: 4,106 MoUs worth Rs12.10 trillion signed

Mumbai: Maharashtra signed 4,106 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) involving an investment of more than Rs12.10 trillion during the three-day Magnetic Maharashtra global investors summit, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced at the valedictory press conference of the business conclave on Tuesday.

In addition, the state will also see what Fadnavis called the “approved investment” of Rs3.91 trillion through 104 MoUs to be executed by Maharashtra and central government agencies. The industry sector—manufacturing, future industry sectors like hyperloop, electric vehicles, logistics, textiles, gems and jewellery—accounts for Rs5.48 trillion of Rs12.10 trillion projected investment followed by housing at Rs3.85 trillion and energy at Rs1.60 trillion, Fadnavis said.

Asked how many of these MoUs would translate into actual investments, Fadnavis said the state had realised 63% of the 2,984 MoUs it signed during the Make in India week in Mumbai in February 2016. “We would better this strike rate to actualise the investment committed at the Magnetic Maharashtra summit,” he said.

The total committed investment of Rs12.10 trillion also promises to create more than 3.6 million jobs.

Apart from the 3.6 million jobs that 4,106 investment proposals promise to create, the approved investment of Rs3.91 trillion that government agencies would make would generate more than 2 lakh jobs, Fadnavis said.

To a question about the future of Rs1.5 trillion mega refinery and petrochemical complex proposed to be developed by three oil marketing companies over 15,000 acres inn Ratnagiri district of Konkan region, Fadnavis said the government would eventually sign an MoU for the project but not before talking to locals opposing the project.

Fadnavis also stated that 70% of the total projected land of 10,000 hectares for the 700-km-long Mumbai-Nagpur prosperity corridor estimated to cost Rs46,000 crore has been acquired “totally by consent”.

The MoUs signed on Tuesday include an investment of Rs60,000 crore committed by Reliance Industries Limited into establishing an integrated industrial area. Maharashtra government’s agency Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) signed an MoU with the railways to set up a 2,000-acre coach manufacturing factory at Latur in Marathwada. Railway minister Piyush Goyal told reporters that 350 acres of land for the first phase of Rs600 crore project would be handed over to the railways in the next four to five days. “This would be a large facility to service not only the domestic metro rail industry but even the international market. We plan to develop an ecosystem of world-class coach factory with ancillary units similar to the auto industry around Pune,” Goyal said.

Fadnavis said the Latur factory had the potential to change “the fate of entire Marathwada region” and create 15,000 direct jobs and three times indirect job opportunities. He pointed out that a large chunk of investment committed at the summit would go into economically backward regions like Marathwada and Vidarbha and Tier-III places. “In fact the biggest beneficiary of Magnetic Maharashtra is Marathwada. The investment proposals have a good regional and sectoral spread,” he said.