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Orissa attracted the maximum interest from domestic and international investors among all Indian states between January 2008 and May 2012.
According to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) data, Orissa signed 587 agreements for investments worth Rs 11,10,421 crore during the period. This translated into 18 per cent of the total proposals worth Rs 6,16,297 crore across the country.
In contrast, Chhattisgarh signed industrial entrepreneur memorandums (IEMs) and issued Letters of Intent (LoI) and Direct Industrial Licences (DILs) equivalent to 12.4 per cent of the cumulative country-wise investment commitment during the period under review, trumping Gujarat, which obtained commitments amounting to 10.5 per cent of the total tally.
The other states that secured substantial investment commitments were Andhra Pradesh, which cornered 9.2 per cent of the proposals, 9.4 per cent of the investments went to Madhya Pradesh, 8.2 per cent to Maharashtra and 7.9 per cent to West Bengal.
But the picture was not as rosy in other parts of the country. The north-eastern states of Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Assam are mere blips on the investment radar of domestic and international industrialists looking to set up new units in India. An analysis of the DIPP data indicates these states cumulatively accounted for just 4.2 per cent of the new industrial investment proposals during the period.
The disparity in industrial investment is the primary reason for an increasing number of people from India’s North-East migrating to other parts of the country in recent years. While Assam saw proposals worth Rs 20,263 crore and Meghalaya got commitments worth Rs 7,864 crore, the poor states of Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur could garner less than Rs 150 crore between themselves. Arunachal Pradesh got proposals worth Rs 3,366 crore and Sikkim received project commitments worth Rs 2,340 crore.
The bulk of the industrial investment proposals were in the electrical equipment sector, which accounted for 45.5 per cent of the total committed amount, followed by metallurgical industries, which garnered 21.6 per cent. The cement and gypsum (5.9 per cent) and chemicals (5 per cent) sectors were the other large avenues for industrial investment.
The size of investment proposals during January 2006 to May 2012 has increased significantly vis-à-vis the 1991-2005 period. Compared to the average investment commitment size of Rs 28.4 crore during 1991-2005, the commitment size grew almost 10-fold to Rs 278.3 crore during January 2006 to May 2012.
Compared to investment commitments worth Rs 18,94,202 crore during the entire 1991-2005 period, states across the country received proposals worth 75,90,596 crore during the previous six-and-a-half years. What is more, the investment proposals during the January 2006-May 2012 period are tipped to provide employment to 9.9 million people, compared to potential employment of 11.9 million people from the proposals received during the 1991-2005 period.
>arvind.jayaram@thehindu.co.in
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