NEW DELHI, Oct 31: The centre has sanctioned a Rs 492 crore electronics manufacturing cluster in Pune, the Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde announced on Monday.
The project is important for the under-fire Maharashtra government which is facing criticism from the opposition for the shifting of some major industrial units, particularly the air transport project which was supposed to be set up in Maharashtra but was shifted to neighbouring Gujarat at the last moment. The project was launched by the prime minister Narendra Modi in Vadodara on Sunday.
Shinde said the Centre has approved a big electronics manufacturing cluster at Ranjangaon in Pune district under National Policy on Electronics. The project is scheduled to be completed in 32 months. The Cluster will be spread across 297.11 acre, and ₹ 492.85 crore will be spent on its development, the deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said, adding that the Centre’s contribution would be ₹ 207.98. “This EMC is targeted to attract ₹ 2000 crore investment & to generate 5000 employment opportunities,” he added.
This will create robust electronics manufacturing ecosystem in Maharashtra,” Fadnavis said. “This project will target units of industrial electronics, consumer electronics, solar Photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing, E-Mobility products/components etc.,” he announced.
The Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led state government has been under fire from the Opposition for losing projects like the over ₹ 1.5 lakh crore investment from Foxconn-Vedanta on chip manufacturing and the ₹ 22,000 crore aircraft manufacturing project where the Tata Group has tied up with Airbus to BJP-ruled Gujarat.
Maharashtra minister Uday Samant on Friday, slamming the opposition for creating “confusion” over the project, had claimed that the deal to set up the Tata-Airbus C-295 transport aircraft project in Gujarat had been signed by the Centre in September last year, when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power in the state.
Former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray had recently called Mr Shinde’s government “traitor” to the state for “failing to protect the state’s interests.” He alleged that the aircraft manufacturing project was the fourth project which has gone away from Maharashtra since the new coalition government consisting of rebel Shiv Sena MLAs, and the BJP, came to power.
The Worli MLA said big and small projects used to come to Maharashtra because of merit. “But today, despite having the merit, these projects are going to the other state,” he said. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has also sought investments from the Tata Group in and around Nagpur, citing strengths like infrastructure, land availability and connectivity in his home state Maharashtra as two recent mega projects went to Gujarat.
(Manas Dasgupta)
