Chhattisgarh government has decided not to ink fresh Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for setting up industry in the mineral rich state.
"We will not invite any industry to come to the state with investment," Chief Minister Raman Singh announced in the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly. The state neither has land nor mineral (raw material) for the new industry, he added.
Singh said the state government had signed enough MoUs in steel, power and cement sectors. "It is enough and there in no need for any fresh MoU or industry in the state," the chief minister said, adding that the minerals available in the state will be used for value addition and not trading.
Experts, however, felt that the announcement of the Chief Minister closing door for the fresh investment was pre-mature and on an assumption that all the industry that had signed MoUs with the state government would come up with the investment in the state.
The government decision to stop fresh investment in Chhattisgarh is pre-mature and seems to be taken in haste, President of Urla Industrial Association G K Agrawal told Business Standard. Instead of closing the doors for new industry, the government should have declared that it would invite fresh investment scanning the group as 75 per cent of the MoUs signed earlier were yet to take shape.
According to date available with the Chhattisgarh State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB), 51 MoUs had been signed by the state government with different industrial groups to draw an investment of Rs 51842.22 crore. But most of the proposals are yet to take shape.
More From This Section
The prominent among the proposals include Tata and Essar steel plants that were supposed to come up in Bastar region. Both the companies had signed MoUs in June 2006, but were yet to get land to put the project on roll.
The announcement to stop fresh investment was taken as the government was aware that no investment would come to the state in future, Congress State General Secretary and party spokesperson Ramesh Varlyani said. The government had handed over the precious mines to industrialists and there was no mine left that could bring the industry to the state, he added.