RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh government has decided to fast track capital investment for setting up plants for ethanol production from maize and sugarcane. It will also cancel 158 Memoranda of understanding (MOUs), including those signed at the Global Investors Meet, as the proceedings for their implementation did not take off. Among them, 55 MOUs were signed between the year 2001 and 2018—when BJP was in power.
Chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Thursday cancelled 55 inactive MoUs signed with several companies for setting up industries in state including those from Global Investors’ meet in 2012. After the review, a total of 158 MoUs, including 55 MoUs of 2001-2018 and 103 MoUs signed during Global Investors’ Meet in 2012 were canceled due to inaction. It was discussed in the meeting that between 2001 and 2018, about 211 MoUs with actual capital investment of Rs 78,776.3 crore was done. While production has started in 67 MoUs and implementation made in 61 MoUs, works on 55 MoUs did not take off, thus, they will be cancelled.
Similarly, in the Global Investors’ Meet, 275 MoUs were signed for capital investment of Rs. 93,830 crore, out of which the actual capital investment of Rs 2003.59 crore was received.
While there were 25 projects that took off after site selection, no work has begun in the remaining 103 MoUs. These 103 MoUs were also cancelled by the board today. In the meeting, the officials informed that 115 MoUs are in force since the year 2019 with the proposed capital investment of Rs 46.9 crore. Implementation in 92 of these projects has started, whereas production started in only one of the projects. Implementation of 23 new MoUs is yet to be started.
CM, in the meeting, also directed to examine and approve the capital investment proposals for setting up plants for production of ethanol from maize and sugarcane in the state, at the earliest.
While addressing the 15th meeting of State Investment Promotion Board at his office on Thursday, CM Baghel said that two committees should be constituted to solve the problems of all the industries. For the policy matters, he said that a committee should be constituted under the chairmanship of state industry minister and for implementation related concerns, committee should be formed under the chief secretary, said Baghel.
The above news was originally posted on timesofindia.indiatimes.com
