Deshmukh hard sells Mah to foreign investors

New Delhi, Nov 27: Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today rolled out a red carpet to foreign investors and outlined plans for making Mumbai a financial hub and a world-class city, requiring an investment of 50-60 billion dollars for the urban infrastructure sector alone.

In his address at the 22nd India Economic Summit here, Mr Deshmukh was in a selling mode to the large number of foreign corporates, highlighting the advantage that was Maharashtra.

He said the state government would leave no stone unturned to facilitate the entry of overseas companies, especially in the infrastructure sector and was doing his utmost to eliminate-- what is commonly known-- as the hassle factor or bureaucratic delays.

Foreign investors often cry hoarse about the long and arduous bureaucratic delays and cite infrastructure bottlenecks as the stumbling block to investing in India.

''The Prime Minister has already given an assurance that Mumbai once again will be converted into a financial hub. We also plan to make it a world-class city,'' Mr Deshmukh said.

The Chief Minister said huge investments are needed for this purpose and added that his government's estimates are that 50-60 billion dollars would be needed to build Mumbai's infrastructure in the next few years.

The mega event, organised jointly by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and CII, has seen the largest ever jamboree of foreign and Indian companies at the summit.

The theme of this year's summit is 'Meeting new expectations' and the organisers have identified a special role in meeting this objective.

Apart from Mr Deshmukh, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit also addressed the summit.

Maharashtra is one the largest state economies and has the third largest per capita income in the country. The state is highly urbanised and is home to seven cities with more than a million inhabitants. Mumbai is regarded as the country's financial and business capital, but its creaking infrastructure, congested roads and water problems have become a matter of concern.

Mr Deshmukh highlighted how his government proposes to transform Maharashtra from a power deficit state to one which is surplus in power. The State Electricity Board has been unbundled, an investment of Rs 60,000 crore is in the pipeline and an independent regulatory body is in place.

He said Maharashtra is the first state to have set up an independent regulatory body for water, which will go a long way in meeting the needs of the industry.

Mr Deshmukh referred to the rapid strides the state government has taken for setting up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) adding that permission has been given to 73 such proposals entailing an investment of Rs 34,000 crore, the largest by any state.

UNI