The macroeconomic data on investments put out by the government year on year does not reflect a surge or substantive conversion, particularly when mapped to the magnitude of investment proposals received by the state governments. So what is the strike rate, rather what is the conversion rate of the big hits? Fact is, while there are announcements aplenty, the conversion of intent into investment is enveloped in a fog of definitions, generalisations, rationalisations and politics - the Amarinder Singh government in Punjab, soon after taking over, said three of four proposals signed by the earlier regime had remained on paper. If all these proposals, by no means an exhaustive list, are added up, it would seem the states received investment proposals worth nearly Rs 40 lakh crore - and if one includes this month’s MoUs, it could well cross Rs 50 lakh crore. Resurgent Rajasthan in 2015 saw MoUs worth Rs 3.3 lakh crore. In 2016, Happening Haryana had wooed proposals worth Rs 6.41 lakh crore, and Karnataka received proposals worth Rs 3.08 lakh crore. Madhya Pradesh signed proposals worth Rs 5.62 lakh crore in 2016 and over Rs 6 lakh crore in 2014. In 2017, Jharkhand got investment proposals worth Rs 3 lakh crore. This was in addition to Rs 2.35 lakh crore in 2017, Rs 2.5 lakh crore in 2016 and Rs 2.43 lakh crore in 2015 - very simply Rs 9.4 lakh crore in four years. Earlier, in January, West Bengal announced that it had received proposals worth Rs 2.19 lakh crore. This weekend, N Chandrababu Naidu flagged off Sunrise Andhra Pradesh Investment Meet and the score card will follow. On Thursday, the UP government declared that 1,045 MoUs were signed during the two-day event, signalling investments of over Rs 4.28 lakh crore - including the setting up of one of the two “defence industrial production corridors” announced in Budget 2018, in Bundelkhand. In an earlier avatar, the Make in India summit, the state signed proposals worth Rs 8 lakh crore. It saw 4,106 MoUs (translating into 35 every hour or one every two minutes) being signed, signalling investment intent of Rs 12.10 lakh crore. Consider the five-day Magnetic Maharashtra show. The choreographed carnival of supply side economics has all the optics of a T20 match - the festoons, the hoopla, the cheerleaders, the big hits and neon-lit scorecards. And then there is the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit. There is Madhya Pradesh Global Investors Summit, the Bengal Global Business Summit, Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors Summit, Invest Karnataka Global Investors Meet, Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet and Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit. The others deploy ‘global’ to convey local aspirations. Not every state is endowed with alliterative possibility. Advantage Assam, Credible Chhattisgarh, Magnetic Maharashtra, Happening Haryana, Progressive Punjab, Resurgent Rajasthan. You could dub them item songs of the political economy.Įvery few months, India’s state governments arrange alluring alliteration, hype and hope to hog headlines and attract the attention of moolah moguls and corporate CEOs to invite investments into their state. By Shankkar Aiyar | Published: 25th February 2018 04:00 AM
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