‘Make in Maharashtra’ and ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’ – fictions called Pokémon

The ‘Make in Maharashtra’ initiative was launched in 2015 by CM Devendra Fadnavis as a state level initiative under the national initiative ‘Make in India’. The Government of Maharashtra signed MOUs worth several lakh crores of rupees. CM declared Maharashtra as No.1 State to attract investment. It sounded good and Maharashtra felt proud.

However, as the time flew past, the investment was not visible on the ground level. It was said the Make in Maharashtra initiative had been a failure.

The opposition was quick to point out that not even 1% of the promised investment has fructified and largely attributed the failure to variety of reasons arising out of non-governance of Fadnavis Government.

On the Eve of Maharashtra Budget 2018, then Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil levelled allegation of “All round failure” against Fadnavis Government.

However, CM Fadnavis refuted the allegations by making the following categorical statement: -

"The MOUs signed under the 'Make in Maharashtra' drive three years ago have a validity of 5 years. Out of the total MOUs worth Rs. 8 lakh crore signed in 2015, the pacts worth Rs. 5 lakh crore have materialized." 

"The investment has started coming and the projects are at various level of development. The success ratio is 71% if you go by the amounts against the average success rate of 30-35% of such initiative."

"In terms of number of MOUs signed and materialized, Maharashtra's ratio is 63%. We will publish a detailed report every year about the investment agreements and it's actualisation." [Emphasis supplied]

The explanation was specious and not in synch with the reality published by the Maharashtra Government data.

A little research of the data published by the State Government itself brings out the following interesting analysis.

3,018 MOUs with proposed investment of Rs.8,04,897 crore and employment potentiality of 30.5 lakh were signed under the initiative ‘Make in Maharashtra’ in 2015.

As per CM's explanation, investment worth Rs. 5 lakh crore has actualized and projects are at various stages of development. Devendra Fadnavis should have published at least now the list of those projects worth Rs. 5 lakh crore that have 'actualized' and are at various stages of development as per his own admission. 

Rs. 5 lakh crore investment is a huge investment but has mysteriously remained invisible requiring the people of Maharashtra to do some microscopic search.

At this juncture, an analysis of the data published by the Government of Maharashtra would be apposite.

Since Fadnavis Government was formed in October 2014, I first refer to the data for the period August 1991 to October 2014 in Table 1 hereinbelow.

 

During this period, projects approved were 18,709 with proposed investment of Rs.10,63,342 crore and projects actually commissioned were 8,376 with investment of Rs.2,54,784 giving a success rate of 23.96%.

Table 2 hereinbelow gives cumulative figure from August 1991 to February 2019.

Total projects cumulatively approved from August 1991 to February 2019 were 20,323 with proposed investment of Rs.12,86,696 crore. However, only 9,098 projects involving investment of Rs.3,06,825 crore were commissioned, thus giving average success rate of 23.84%.

From these two tables, we can derive the number of projects/proposed investment approved and projects actually commissioned during the period October 2014 to February 2019 as follows.

Period	Approved Proposals No.       Inv. In Rs.Cr		Commissioned Projects No.          Inv. In Rs. Cr.		Success rate %
August 1991 to February 2019	20,323	12,86,696	9,098	3,06,825	23.84%
August 1991 to October 2014	18,709	10,63,342	8,376	2,54,784	23.96%
November 2014 to February 2019	1,614	2,23,354	722	52,041	23.30%

Thus, from October 2014 to February 2019, the approved proposals were for Rs.2,23,354 crore and the actualized investment is Rs.52,041 crore in last little more than 4 years. (3,06,825 crore - 2,54,784 crore) giving a success rate of 23.30%, a drop of 0.66% from 23.96%. There is no data available to reconcile these figures with Rs. 8 lakh worth MOUs and Rs.5 lakh worth ‘actualization’ from October 2014 till February 2018 when CM Fadnavis replied in response to allegation from LoP Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil.

Rattled Fadnavis Government was forced to come out with another initiative ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’ in February 2018 as it had nothing to explain about the outcome of its ‘Make in Maharashtra’ initiative launched in 2015. Fadnavis Government declared signing of fresh 3,965 proposals having investment worth of Rs.12.07 lakh crore and employment potentiality of 36.95 lakh. 

The following points emerge:

1.  Without any initiative like ‘Make in Maharashtra’, the success rate from August 1991 till October 2014 was 23.96%.

2.  With initiative like ‘Make in Maharashtra’, the success rate for the period November 2014 to February 2019 actually went down to 23.30%.

Then LoP Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil was right in labelling this as ‘all round failure’.

The average actualization of investment in Maharashtra from 1991 till October 2014 was about Rs.11,366 crore per annum. The average incremental investment from November 2014 till February 2019 is about Rs.12,009 crore per annum. The performance is bettered by a measly incremental figure of Rs.643 crore per annum. But this may be because of some spill over of projects approved in the period before October 2014 and materialising after.

These figures relate to industrial projects in IT, Metallurgy, Fuel, Chemicals & Fertilizers, Electrical & Electronics, Sugar, Processed Food, Pharmaceutical, etc. etc. The mega projects and rail-road infra projects are not included. Whether the MOUs signed for Rs.20 lakh crore includes defence and other infra projects is not clear. But in any case, those projects stand all together on a different footing.

This should leave everyone guessing about the status of MOUs worth Rs.20 lakh crore signed under the initiatives 'Make in Maharashtra' and 'Magnetic Maharashtra'.

CM Devendra Fadnavis has to publish detailed dossier on this state of affairs elaborating the reasons for non-actualization of MOUs signed during the first initiative ‘Make in Maharashtra’ for the people to appreciate the reasons behind this hiatus. The second initiative ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’ in February 2018 is fairly recent and it is futile to expect any penny to materialize.

The unwillingness to publish detailed project wise list of investment actualized and its present status as well as detailed reasons for the projects not-actualized would certainly leave Maharashtra wondering whether ‘Make in Maharashtra’ and ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’ were just two fictions called Pokémon designed to hoodwink the gullible masses by playing with their psych.