Times of India: Nagpur: Wednesday, December 16, 2015.
The
government had to face embarrassment in the legislative council on Tuesday when
leader of opposition Dhananjay Munde exposed its claims on new investments in
the state. The information tabled by the government and that by Munde had so
many discrepancies that the chairman reserved the question.
Congress MLC
Anant Gadgil had raised the issue of delay in issuance of various permits and
clearances to industries during the question hour. In reply, Pravin Pote,
minister of state for industries, claimed that in one year of BJP-Shiv Sena
government, new investments worth Rs 74,000 crore had been attracted in the
state. "Forty-six mega projects are coming to the state, which will
provide employment to 1,82,000 people," the minister said.
Munde
immediately countered Pote's claim. "The minister is misleading the House.
His figures are wrong and I have documents to prove it. As per information
obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by my office, final agreement
has not been signed with a single industry. All of them are in primary
stage," he said. The NCP leader then submitted the information obtained by
him to council chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar.
When the
minister stuck to his claim and started reading out the names of the new units
along with the investment, Nimbalkar told him to first compare the information
with that submitted by Munde and then table it. He kept the question pending
till this was done.
According to
information obtained by Munde's aide Nafees Rizwi, under the RTI Act, chief
minister Devendra Fadnavis had secured an investment of Rs 41,400 crore during
his visit to Switzerland, Germany, Israel, China, United States and Japan. This
will generate direct employment for 51,000 persons. Rizwi had demanded copies
of the agreement with these industries. The industries department stated that
as the investment proposals were in primary stage, it was not possible to
provide the copies of the agreements.
Later talking
to TOI, Munde said that the information on new investments was made available
to him on November 3. "There can be a marginal increase in the investment
amount but the actual figure is nowhere near that claimed by the
minister," he said.
Opposition
members also pointed out that while the government had scrapped River
Regulation Zone (RRZ) to allow industries on the river bank, the National Green
Tribunal (NGT) had banned any construction near rivers and hence scrapping RRZ
was at variance with the green tribunal's directives. MoS Pote did not reply to
this question.
.JPG)
.JPG)
