State will soon be India's No. 1 investment destination, says CM
Efforts to transform and upgrade Mumbai's crumbling infrastructure and turn the city into an international financial centre is going well and there could be some progress as early as in the next few months, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has said.
The state government will begin work on the coastal road and the Mumbai transharbour link (MTHL) connecting the island city with the mainland this year itself, while a committee headed by Anshu Jain, former co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, and Arundhati Bhattacharya, SBI chairman, will thrash out the details of turning Mumbai into an international financial centre. In an exclusive interview to ET, Fadnavis said that bids for the coastal road and the transharbour link will be invited in the next few months and work could start as soon as the projects are awarded. The state is waiting for a final notification from the environment ministry for the coastal road, which will connect the tip of the island city with its farthest western suburbs.
“Funding is not a problem; we have companies from China and Japan vying for completing the projects at competitive interest rates. Even today, we had a Korean company that is vying to complete the project along with a US firm. We will start work on the coastal road project as well as the MTHL project this year and it will be completed within five years.“
The BJP government came to power last year after a 15-year gap promising to upgrade the city's infrastructure and solve its transport and housing-related problems. The citizens of Mumbai, India's financial capital, voted overwhelmingly for the party and its ally, the Shiv Sena, in the elections.MLAs from the city and its environs form the second-biggest bloc in the BJP's assembly strength and the government is under intense pressure to fulfil its promises.
“We have a solution for everything,“ the chief minister said when asked about the progress of the metro that is being planned in various parts of the city. “We have sanctioned 76 kilometres of metro network; soon we will also announce a further network of more metro lines. We want to cover a huge part of Mumbai through the metro network,“ Fadnavis said.
Basking in the afterglow of bagging three prestigious foreign investment projects in a span of 10 days in the state, Fadnavis said Maharashtra will soon be India's No. 1 investment destination. Foxconn, General Motors and South Korea's Posco all announced their intention to set up projects in the state in the past few days. Fadnavis said a leading global aerospace company that makes helicopters has agreed to examine the state as a potential investment destination, while the Anil Ambani group is already setting up a de fence-related project in Nagpur.
“Other states had developed at the expense of Maharashtra.We created a void and they filled it. Now, with strong leadership and proactive policies, we have regained ground. We will soon be No. 1 again,“ he said.
A committee to consider all issues relating to the international financial centre has been set up with former Deutshce Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain and SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya as the co-chairs. This committee will consider all technical, legal issues leading to the creation of the IFC. Fadnavis also said the government will set up an international arbitration centre along with IFC in Mumbai. “Right now, Singapore hosts most of the arbitration and I think 50% of the arbitration that is done in Singapore is from India and 60% of that is from Mumbai. So, we are in the process of setting up an international arbitration centre along with an International Financial Centre in Mumbai. We have carved out a place, decided a strategy ,“ he said.
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