Akhilesh’s investment road show a big hit
MUMBAI: Promising the best facilities to industry, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday made his maiden investment road show in the financial Capital here that saw India Inc committing Rs 33,000 crore to the most populous State.
Mr Yadav also appealed to the investors to look at the ground situation and not be guided by perception that the State has law and order problems.
“I want to call you to invest in U.P. and I will be giving all the facilities,” Mr Yadav told an audience comprising key executives from Reliance Industries, Aditya Birla Group, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, R.P. Goenka group, the Tatas and Adani Group among others at the U.P. investors’ conclave.
He said that over 40 agreements have been signed which entail an investment of Rs 33,000 crore and create employment for 1.5 lakh people in the State.
The commitments were led by Japanese electronics major Toshiba Power, which is building a 660 MW thermal power plant at Harduaganj at an investment of Rs 3,500 crore, while others who signed agreements included Korean electronics major LG, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Godrej Agrovet and ITC.
Infrastructure sector leads in the agreements signed with Rs 13,405 crore, followed by Food and Agro processing at Rs 6,630 crore and
manufacturing at Rs 6,150 crore.
Telecom giant Idea Cellular said it will invest Rs 500 crore and power solutions provider Jackson Power said it will invest Rs 500 crore.
With questions being raised repeatedly over the actual investments on the ground following the mega announcements at such summits, the Chief Minister said he was confident of money flowing in, as all the companies which have signed agreements already have a presence in the state in some form.
It can be noted that many States have started organising such mega events to attract investments following the successes achieved by Gujarat over the last decade.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who led the Gujarat model, has now been speaking of the need for the States to compete with each other for investments for the benefit of its people.
In the past, other Chief Ministers including Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal have held similar meetings in the city.
Mr Yadav said U.P. has an efficient bureaucracy that will ensure ease of doing business. He pointed out that having the largest population also makes his state the biggest market in the country.
He also sought to correct some inaccuracies, pointing out that his State is the largest milk producer in the country and not Gujarat. Similarly, he claimed that U.P. is ahead of Maharashtra in sugar production and can compete with Punjab on it. —
