News Detail

• A very small portion of the power sector Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) signed during the Vibrant Gujarat Summits in 2009 and 2011 have materialised, figures provided by the state government show.Energy minister Saurabh Patel said in the assembly on Friday that a total of 229 MoUs related to the power sector were signed at the two summits. "Of these, 117 projects are under implementation, while 35 projects have already been commissioned," Patel said in response to a question by Congress MLA from Karjan, Chandu Dabhi.
• The minister said that as of December 31, projects worth Rs1.22 lakh crore were under implementation, while projects involving investment of Rs6.61 lakh crore were under preliminary stages. He also said that projects worth Rs27,170 crore were already commissioned.This led the Opposition Congress to say that only 3.5% of the total investments envisaged in the MoUs had materialised, and that a majority of the projects had been dropped.
• However, the energy minister denied that any of the projects had been dropped. He pointed out that power projects had long gestation period of five to six years due to environmental and regulatory issues. He said that Gujarat had achieved significant power generation capacity additions in recent years. In response to another question, Patel said that the actual investments in MoUs signed at the Vibrant Gujarat Summits in 2007, 2009 and 2011, stood at Rs2.54 lakh crore."Investments of Rs1.05 lakh crore, Rs91,640 crore and Rs57,050 crore, have been realised from MoUs signed in 2007, 2009 and 2011 respectively," Patel said. The MoUs signed in the three summits envisaged investments of Rs37.5 lakh crore.

Source