Rama Krishna Sangem
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wants to ensure a high rate of conversion of MoUs signed at the two day Global Investors Summit (GIS) on March 3, 4, at Visakhapatnam. Of the 352 MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) inked with the State government, which are valued at Rs 13 lakh crore, the CM is keen on converting at least 90 per cent of them at the earliest. These investment proposals promise to generate 6 lakh jobs.
This is reflected in CM Jagan’s concluding speech at the GIS venue on March 4, Saturday, where he said: “I am setting up a monitoring committee headed by Chief Secretary KS Jawahar Reddy and comprising officials of Chief Minister’s Office and industries secretary. This committee will meet on a weekly basis and review the grounding of the proposals signed at this summit”.
Jagan is apparently happy over the good response to his GIS for which he participated in several roadshows in different cities last few months. He wanted to overcome the opposition TDP’s charge that his government was only interested in doling out subsidies to the poor to win vote, but not willing to promote industries which can create jobs. Through his GIS, he wanted to prove them wrong.
Presence of business tycoons
What lent authenticity to the GIS is presence of several business tycoons like Mukhesh Ambani, Kumara Mangalam Birla, Karan Adani,GMR’s Mallikarjuna Rao, Dr Krishna and Suchitra Ella, among others. The joining of union minister Nitin Gadkari helped Jagan in displaying the support of Modi government to his industrialization push. Gadkhari promised Centre’s backing to AP’s efforts to promote indusreies.
CM Jagan wanted to ensure that there is high rate of conversion of MoUs signed at this investors’ summits. Because, he himself criticized previous Chandrababu Naidu’s government’s attempts to promote investments through summit s. At earlier summits of TDP regime, the conversion rate was less than 10 per cent. Though the worth of MoUs stood at Rs 20 lakh crore, in three summits put together.
The officials of AP government are confident that this time it will be different. “As most of the MoUs singed at this summit pertain to sunrise area like green energies and technologies, green hydrogen, renewable energy plants, modern bio sciences and pharmaceuticals, that too proposed by leading companies, we are sure, the conversion rate will be definitely very high,” said an officer from the industries department.