Investment proposals for Uttar Pradesh hog headlines but are old wine in new bottle 

On Sunday, July 28, there was much hype over the event where investment of over ₹65,000 crore were announced for Uttar Pradesh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah eloquently declared that the route to India’s 5 Trillion economy passed through Uttar Pradesh.

The Ground Breaking ceremony was an extension of the UP Investors Summit in February 2018 where MoUs worth ₹4.28 lakh crore were signed. The focus of that summit was on Renewable Energy (16.8 per cent), Infrastructure (15.4 per cent), Power (14.7 per cent), IT and Electronic Manufacturing (10.2 per cent) and Tourism (10.1 per cent).

The first Ground Breaking ceremony was held on July 29, 2018- almost five months after the UP Investors’ Summit – where Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled projects worth ₹60,000 crore. Exactly a year later Amit Shah has now announced ₹65,000 crore investment claiming that over 25 per cent of targeted MoUs signed on February 2018 have been achieved.

He claimed that second Ground Breaking ceremony was more successful than the first one because the number of investors increased and even investment has gone up from ₹60,000 crore in 2018 to ₹65,000 crore in 2019.

In the first Ground Breaking ceremony 81 had companies proposed investment while in second the number of investment has gone up to 251, he claimed.

Is the data given by Amit Shah correct ? An analysis of investment proposals made by top investors who were given a red carpet welcome shows that investment promised by the majority of the investors was virtually what they had promised earlier. Sample this:

· Dr Naresh Trehan of Medanta Healthcare announced that his hospital in Lucknow will start functioning from October 15. This hospital will give employment to 13,000 to 15,000 people. He even said that he will also open similar hospitals in Varanasi and Prayagraj (Allahabad). He did not announce fresh investment. Interestingly, this hospital project was inked during Akhilesh Yadav’s time and then also Samajwadi Party Government had showcased this project as “big investment” for UP.

· Yousuff Ali, Chairman of Lullu Group, the UAE based company said that Asia’s biggest mall was coming up in Lucknow. This ₹2000 crore project was signed in 2016 when Akhilesh Yadav was Chief Minister. Ali however declared yesterday that he will be setting up more malls in Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Allahabad.

Reliance group of Mukesh Ambani has promised ₹10,000 investment in the next three years to strengthen the Jio network. Officers conversant with telecom industry say that this investment was already due because Reliance needed to strengthen and consolidate the network in the state.

Gautam Adani, Chairman Adani Group proposed investment of ₹750 crore in the power sector. This is again an on-going project to set up sub-stations and investment was expected. The investment meet has nothing to do with this investment.

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrashekharan did not talk about direct investment in UP; instead he talked about strengthening Tata Trust, which will be opening smaller hospitals.

This second Ground Breaking Ceremony focused on projects that started in 2018. This ceremony was cancelled thrice because of the lack of support from industrialists. “This time some investors came because of the pressure of the union Government.

“The majority of the projects are in Food Processing sector which are between ₹5 crore and ₹10 crore. Over 54 per cent of the investment is proposed in western UP that too in Noida with electronic manufacturing sector making up 31 per cent of the ₹65,000 crore investment proposed,” an official quipped