Centre approves ₹492 crore electronic cluster for Maha

After the loss of recent big-ticket projects, Ranjangaon project brings some cheer for Shinde-Fadnavis government

Mumbai: The central government on Monday approved the setting up of a ₹492.85 crore electronic manufacturing cluster (EMC) at Ranjangaon in Pune district which is expected to attract investments worth ₹2,000 crore.

Monday’s announcement came as a shot in the arm for the state government which has been under attack from the opposition for not doing enough to shore up investments in the state. (PTI)

The EMC would facilitate plants for industrial and consumer electronics, solar PV manufacturing and e-mobility manufacturers.

Monday’s announcement came as a shot in the arm for the state government which has been under attack from the opposition for not doing enough to shore up investments in the state.

Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who made the announcement about the setting up of the EMC said a false narrative was being created by the opposition that industries were leaving Maharashtra after the formation of the Shinde-BJP government. “The electronic manufacturing cluster will help Maharashtra in becoming an electronic hub and help attract investment and jobs.” Fadnavis also said that the government was expecting to get a textile cluster sanctioned by the central government in the first quarter of 2023. He added that a refinery project too would be set up on the Konkan coast though its exact location is yet to be decided. “The refinery will come up at either Nanar or Barsu-Solegaon but it will be set up in Maharashtra. There is a possibility that it may come up jointly with Kerala,” he told reporters.

The Shinde-Fadnavis government has recently been on the defensive over the last-minute decision of Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture to set up a ₹1.64 lakh crore semi-conductor plant in Gujarat instead of Talegaon in Pune. Last week, Airbus-Tata decided to set up a ₹22,000 crore military aircraft manufacturing plant in Gujarat even though the Shinde-Fadnavis government had said it was vying to get the project to Nagpur.

Fadnavis said that he had personally met a senior Tata representative to get the Airbus-TATA project to Maharashtra when he was CM in 2016 and later when he was in the opposition. But the then CM Uddhav Thackeray and industries minister Subhas Desai failed to capitalise on his initiative, he said.

Regardless, Fadnavis added, his and Shinde’s government would once again make Maharashtra a top investment destination in the next two years.

In response to the deputy chief minister’s comments, Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray said that while every rupee invested in the state was important, two thousand crores was a paltry sum given that Maharashtra had lost investments worth ₹1.49 lakh crore. Thackeray dared chief minister Eknath Shinde to a debate on the investment climate in the state. “The deputy chief minister today said that the competition between the states in the country is increasing. I am challenging the chief minister to a one-on-one debate on exactly where Maharashtra is falling short in (this) competition,” said Thackeray.

Referring to Fadnavis’s claim that Subhash Desai had said in January 2020 itself that Foxconn will not set up a unit in Maharashtra, Thackeray said this was in connection to their plans for a mobile phone manufacturing plant and not related to the semiconductor unit.

Not to be outdone in political rhetoric, MNS chief Raj Thackeray told the media at an independent briefing that that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should treat all states on equitable terms rather than be partial towards Gujarat.

“The Prime Minister belongs to the whole country and must treat all states on an equal footing... I am feeling bad that every project that is leaving (the state) is going to Gujarat,” said Raj Thackeray. “The Prime Minister must be broad minded and must think for all states... The people of all states must get employment locally so that they are not compelled to go elsewhere for jobs and become a burden. If big projects go to all states equally, only then will the country develop,” he added.