Mumbai: The Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture on Tuesday signed an agreement with Gujarat to set up a semiconductor and display fabrication plant worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore. A setback for Maharashtra which was in advanced stages of negotiations for investment.
Development has caught the spark A blame game between the leaders of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra and the current Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose home state is Gujarat, tweeted on Tuesday that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) is “an important step in accelerating India’s semiconductor manufacturing ambitions”.
This MoU is an important step in accelerating India’s semiconductor manufacturing ambitions. The investment of Rs 1.54 lakh crore will create a significant impact to boost the economy and jobs. It will also create a huge ecosystem for ancillary industries and help our MSMEs. https://t.co/nrRbfKoetd
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 13 September 2022
Foxconn Taiwan based. is the trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry Company LimitedA contract electronics manufacturer.
The signing comes less than two months after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis Had a meeting Executives of the Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group and Talegaon near Pune expressed optimism about the joint venture investment, and months Ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections to be held later this year.
Maharashtra had been lobbying for investments since 2015.
at the press conference on TuesdayShiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray said it was a “huge loss” for the state as the previous MVA government – which included Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress – had “finalized investment in Maharashtra by 95 per cent”. ”
He said, ’95 percent it is decided that this company will come to Maharashtra, but despite everything being finalized, why did this business go to another state? Pratishthan should answer why he went to Gujarat.
Speaking to ThePrint, Fadnavis said that companies had decided to invest in Gujarat even before the Shinde-led government came to power, and the blame lies with the previous government.
“Though I am a little disappointed, I am not disappointed,” he added, adding: “We will take Maharashtra far ahead of other states in the next two years.”
Maharashtra’s interest in the project
The Maharashtra government was personally in talks with Vedanta and Foxconn before the companies signed a joint venture in early 2015 – when Fadnavis was the state’s chief minister.
fadnavis Had a meeting Foxconn executives hosted him in Maharashtra during and after his visit to China in May 2015, In the same year, Foxconn Put signature on Agreement to invest $5 billion over five years with the state government to set up a new electronics manufacturing facility.
State government sources told ThePrint that the company plans to start a small mobile production facility in Navi Mumbai before a larger plant in Talegaon, and even set up an office at the World Trade Center in Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade. has also taken place.
In 2016, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) signed an agreement with TwinStar Display Technologies – a Vedanta Group company – and Unveiled A ‘fab policy’ for fabrication companies to encourage investment by semiconductor and semiconductor device firms that manufacture the chips needed for electronic components.
Vedanta Group and Foxconn in February this year logging in In a joint venture to manufacture semiconductors in India.
While Aaditya Thackeray said that by March-April this year, Maharashtra had emerged as the front-runner to invest in the Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture, Fadnavis told ThePrint that the deal with the Gujarat government was being done for two years. was.
blame game
A senior leader of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Subhash Desai, who was the industries minister in the MVA government, told reporters that he held several meetings with company officials about their expectations from the Maharashtra government.
“After all this, he selected a site in Talegaon. All these discussions were positive and the point was that really only paperwork remained. Then our government fell and we could not make any more efforts to materialize the investment,” he told reporters at the press conference he jointly addressed with Aditya.
Desai said the Vedanta-Foxconn agreement with the Gujarat government was “unexpected” especially after seeing photographs of Shinde and Fadnavis meeting Vedanta officials in July.
‘Previous government guilty’
Speaking to ThePrint, Fadnavis refuted Aditya’s claims, saying that the former government did not invite Vedanta-Foxconn officials for talks even once, while the company was in talks with Gujarat for two years.
“Our government has come” [back to power] Just a few days ago. We were told that Gujarat has given a good deal to Foxconn Vedanta and they have decided to invest there. We immediately contacted them and offered a better package. Fadnavis said, who was Sworn in As Deputy Chief Minister on 30 June.
The BJP leader further said that his government had held talks with Vedanta-Foxconn but “In the end, he decided to stick to his original decision of going to Gujarat.
“If we want to start a blame game, then the previous government is responsible for it… Our previous government did not invite them even once,” he said. “We tried our best, but we were late.”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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