Ahead of Vibrant Gujarat 2017, on Monday, top industrial houses of Gujarat rallied behind the state government and said that the implementation rate of the projects for which MoUs were done during previous summits were pretty good.
The support, on expected lines, comes at a time when the Gujarat govt is faced with criticism over the rate of implementation of the projects and the actual investment that has come in the state ever since the first summit, which was held in 2003.
To back their statements, the industrialists gave various figures. Chairman and managing director of Zydus Cadila, Pankaj Patel, said that the record of commissioning of projects had gone up and if the projects were signed under 'Vibrant Gujarat', they got preference. Patel, who is also FICCI president, said that biennial event gave industrialists an opportunity to plan long term.
Group president (corporate affairs) of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Parimal Nathwani, shared RIL's rate of implementation and said that there would be no impact of demonetization on 2017 summit. “It is a temporary phase,” he said.
Questioned as to why there was a need to reiterate about Gujarat's good business environment when state chief secretary J. N. Singh had recently given details of the rate of implementation and other facts, Patel said that it was because “we are Gujaratis and are proud about it”. Companies also gave their own implementation data, quipped Nathwani.
Rajiv Agrawal, managing director and CEO of Essar, said that an implementation rate of 66 per cent was not a small achievement. He further said that in Gujarat, the investors got the benefits of business minded approach. Gujarat, he said, also provided good port and land connectivity.
Pranav Adani of Adani Group, Chitan Thaker from Wellspun and Jayesh Desai from Torrent also spoke.
