M'shtra pips Gujarat for new projects in FY06: RBI

Maharashtra has over taken Gujarat in terms of new projects undertaken in the industrial, infrastructural and service sectors.

While new projects worth Rs 26,947 crore were undertaken in Maharashtra, Gujarat is a close second with Rs 24,531 crore worth new projects in the financial year 2005-06.

This was revealed by the latest RBI Bulletin. The study tries to capture the growth of fixed capital investment by the corporate sector which is based on projects assistance sanctioned by the commercial banks and other term lending institutes.

In FY 2004-05, in terms of total project cost, while Gujarat attracted new projects worth Rs 10,983 crore, Maharashtra managed to get new projects worth Rs 9,808 crore.

Projects worth Rs 1,34,243 core were undertaken in the country in 2005-06 and the share of projects in Maharashtra was 20.1 per cent which is almost double the 2004-05 figure which stood at 10.8 per cent.

Gujarat's share has also increased substantially from 11.7 per cent to 18.3 per cent. Maharashtra and Gujarat are followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with a share of 9.1 per cent and 8.4 per cent, respectively.

However, the real story is in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh where the number of projects undertaken has doubled from 23 to 50 and new projects worth Rs 10,414 crore were undertaken compared with just Rs 1,348 crore in FY 2004-05.

Despite much media hype about West Bengal's chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's industry friendly polices, the state attracted new projects worth Rs 2,548 crore, a moderate hike over FY 2004-05 figure of Rs 2,324 crore.

This figure is actually lower than Uttaranchal and slightly higher than Rajasthan. These states attracted the new projects worth Rs 2,959 crore and Rs 2,514 crore respectively.

The 396 new projects with the cost of Rs 79,602 crore in 2005-06 accounted for 59.3 per cent of the total cost of projects undertaken 2005-06, which is substantially higher than 42.1 per cent in 2004-05.

Very large projects with cost of Rs 500 crore or more, numbering 52 accounted for 58.1 per cent of the total cost of projects in 2005-06. The aggregate cost of these projects is Rs 77,932 crore.

Where as in FY 2004-05 there were only 34 such projects with the total investment of Rs 54,303 crore. The share of projects between Rs 200 crore to Rs 500 crore has also gone up from 12.7 per cent to 20.1 per cent in FY 2005-06.