Govt on aggressive drive for Vibrant Summit

After Diwali, teams led by other Cabinet ministers will explore non-BJP states like Orissa, Assam and Telangana.

Gujarat has started marketing the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit 2015 more aggressively in the domestic circuit.

In view of the growing competition among other states with their own version of investment summits, Gujarat has started marketing the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit 2015 more aggressively in the domestic circuit, with campaign focused on comparative infrastructure, logistics, power and governance vis-a-vis other states.

In its seventh edition, for the first time, the teams of Cabinet ministers, some of them are led by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, are touring the neighbouring states with IAS officers to woo investors. While previous summits did see road shows in four metros, this time the list includes smaller cities, both in non-BJP and BJP-ruled states.

While the political leaders are leading teams across the country, bureaucrats are covering the countries like the US, Russia and Canada.

The ministers and party leaders have covered major cities, including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Soon, there will be tours to Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur and Bhopal. It all began in August with CM accompanied by Finance Minister Saurabh Patel and top bureaucrats, including Chief Secretary Varesh Sinha, held a curtain raiser in New Delhi a couple of weeks ago.

“We are trying to attract investments across the world as well as within the country as to further tag Gujarat as business destination. Last time, 21 states had taken participation and this is for the first time we are taking the pre-summit events like road shows to newer cities, including two-tier ones, as everybody matters,” said a top official from the Chief Minister’s Office.

The CM earlier this month in Mumbai and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Ramanlal Vora this week in Lucknow raised issues of the poor local infrastructure to hard sell Gujarat as a better place to do business. Patel appealed to businessmen to think beyond the congested Mumbai, while Vora tried wooing the service sector in Lucknow by promising 24-hour power supply and security — something the Akhilesh Yadav government has been struggling to provide.

After Diwali, teams led by other Cabinet ministers will explore non-BJP states like Orissa, Assam and Telangana.

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The Uttar Pradesh government had hosted the UP Investment Conclave in Delhi and recently launched Samadhan Divas to address woes of the investors.

However, the Gujarat Industries Department officials said that their real challenge would come when the teams would land in Bhopal and Jaipur in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, ruled by the strong Shivrajsinh Chouhan and Vasundhra Raje led BJP governments, respectively.

Officials also admitted that the power-packed show by Chouhan recently left them stunned. In its forth investment summit held from October 8, it attracted investment worth Rs 6.9 lakh crore and had nine countries as its partners. “Road shows in Bhopal and Jaipur will also focus on attracting investments to Gujarat,” said an official.

Representatives from 100 companies and seven countries participated in the first UP investor conclave. About 1,000 companies and 50 countries participated in the Gujarat summit 2013. In 2009, the Gujarat summit witnessed investment commitment worth Rs 12 lakh crore.

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This time, Gujarat has seven partner countries. Apart from presence of Union Cabinet ministers led by PM Modi himself, the Central government also announced Rs 1 lakh crore nation’s first landlocked oil and chemical investment hub in MP. Similar was announced for Gujarat too.

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