The corporate houses failing to make any progress in the investment proposals signed with the Chhattisgarh government are likely to face the axe.
The state government is going to review the progress of the Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) it had signed with different corporate houses for investment in the state. The two-day review meeting would start on Tuesday.
“We are planning to take stringent action against the corporate that had failed to make any progress in its investment plan in the state,” Chhattisgarh’s industry minister Rajesh Munat told Business Standard. The government would consider scrapping the MoUs with such groups, he added.
The senior officials of the corporate had been invited in the meeting to give the presentation about the progress made, a senior executive of a company said. While a few representatives of the companies have been invited on Tuesday, others would attend the meeting on Wednesday, the executive added.
Though the review meeting to note the progress of the MoUs had been convened from time to time, the corporate executives felt that the Chhattisgarh government was planning to go tough against the companies who were not taking any interest to expedite the MoU. “After scrapping the MoUs, the government can reallocate the water and other resources that it has planned to allot to the company,” the executives said.
According to the Chhattisgarh State Investment Promotional Board (SIPB) records, in all 121 MoUs had been signed in the state between 2001 and 2010 with an estimated investment proposals of Rs 192126.09 crore. The industry department officials had been busy listing out the number of MoUs that had not made any progress.
Also Read
The prominent proposals include Tata Steel’s 5.5 Million Tonnes per annum (MTPA) Greenfield Integrated Plant in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. The company had signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government in June 2005 for the project. The administration had failed to allot land to the company. The industry minister said the land allotment work would be completed soon.
The other important proposal included the 3.2 MTPA steel plant of Essar Steel in restive Dantewada district for which MoU was signed a month after the Tata’s agreement. The state government had however failed to even convene a public hearing for the Essar project following strong protest from the Naxalites.