3,000 MoUs from Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015 dropped

As many as 3,000 out of 21,000 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in 2015 have been dropped, a senior state government functionary said in the state assembly on Tuesday.

Replying on behalf of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who also holds the industries portfolio, senior minister Saurabh Patel informed the House that 17,081 MoU were signed at the 2015 Summit, of which 3,000 have been dropped as of December 2017.

"A total of 11,999 MoU signed at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015 have been commissioned as of December 31, 2017, while 1,176 others are under implementation. There are 552 other MoU which are in preliminary stages of implementation, while only 3,000 MoU have been dropped," the minister said during the Question Hour.

Figures tabled in the assembly by the state government in response to another question showed that 13,544 MoU out of 21,304 MoU signed in 2015 had been commissioned as of December 2017. "The proposed investment in these 13,544 MoU was Rs3.96 lakh crore, of which investment of Rs2.71 lakh has already been made. Another 1,977 projects, with an investment of Rs1.49 lakh crore, are under implementation," Saurabh Patel said in the reply.

Responding to a similar question about the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2017, the minister said that 24,774 MoU were signed in all, of which 2,899 number of projects entailing an investment of Rs32,884 crore had been commissioned by December 2017. "A further 3,251 MoU are under implementation," he added. At the end of the 2015 Summit, then Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had announced that 21,304 MoU promising investment of Rs25 lakh crore had been signed. However, the figures tabled in the assembly provide a very different picture. The state government had not announced the investment figures at the 2017 Summit.

Held first in 2003, eight editions of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit have been held so far, while the ninth one is slated to take place in January 2019. The biennial event has helped Gujarat position itself as a key investment destination, but the criticism that the eye-popping MoU figures are highly exaggerated has stuck.

On Tuesday, leader of opposition Paresh Dhanani said that investment announcements of a staggering Rs140 lakh crore had been made at Vibrant Gujarat Summits so far, but the actual investment was hardly a fraction of the same.