This was the second letter sent by Shinde The government requested Agarwal for the date of signing of the MoU. The first CM was sent by Shinde on July 26, but apparently there was no commitment. “We realized something was amiss when the firm stopped responding to letters and emails,” a senior official said.
Shinde’s letter invited Agarwal to sign a memorandum of understanding for the project in Mumbai, “preferably on July 29 at 12 noon”. However, Anbalagan’s letter, which arrived a week later, was more probable. It asked Agarwal “to indicate a convenient date and time for the signing ceremony of an MoU.” Deputy CM Fadnavis himself met Agarwal on two occasions – on August 29 and September 5 – to assure the state’s support.
In an interview to a TV channel earlier this week, Industries Minister Uday Samant said, “We sent an email to Vedanta about the MoU, but they did not respond for 8-10 days. We got to know his final decision only from his tweet.
He said, “I think he had made up his mind to choose Gujarat as he did not get any output from the previous government. The CM spoke to his officers. The deputy CM met Agarwal for 1.5 hours and tried to convince him. tried.
Agarwal himself tweeted that he decided on Gujarat a few months back as it has lived up to our expectations. He mentioned that in July, the Maharashtra government made a big effort to outdo the others with a competitive offering.
However, documents show that both the MVA and Shinde governments had pushed the big-ticket project, with the MVA doing the initial spadwork over several months. On 5 January, Vedanta submitted Expression of Interest (EoI) to the MVA government as well as to Gujarat and Karnataka, By January 11, the state had responded with an in-principle approval. On January 19, the state responded to the EOI and former industries minister Subhash Desai extended an invitation letter to the firm.
By February 24, a detailed site visit was done by company officials at the proposed location of Talegaon in Pune. on May 3, foxconn Site visited. On May 6, Desai and the then environment minister Aaditya Thackeray met Vedanta’s team. On 24 May, he met Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal in Davos. Till June 13, the government shared a tentative stimulus and infrastructure package pending the approval of the Cabinet and High-Powered Committee (HPC).
The Shinde government was sworn in on June 30. Fadnavis and Shinde had written to Agarwal inviting Vedanta to invest in the state on July 14 and 15, respectively. On 26 July, Vedanta and Foxconn’s leadership team met Shinde, Fadnavis and the state bureaucracy and Shinde asked Vedanta to confirm the date of the MoU signing ceremony. HPC had approved an incentive of Rs 38,000 crore. On 5 September, the invitation to confirm the date of signing of the MoU was extended for the second time.
“Considering the interest shown by the company, the advantages of the site and the strength of the stimulus package, the signing of the deal was seen as a foregone conclusion,” a senior official said. He refuted the Shinde government’s claim that the project failed as the MVA had not approved incentives through HPC.