Narendra Modi says Maharashtra will become India’s first trillion-dollar economy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Magnetic Maharashtra Convergence 2018 in Mumbai on Sunday. Photo: PTI

Mumbai: Maharashtra will become India’s first trillion-dollar economy, reaching the milestone by 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday.

He said he was happy that Maharashtra had set itself an ambitious target but added that no ambition was “beyond realisation in the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj”. Modi was speaking at the inaugural session of the 18-20 February Magnetic Maharashtra global investment summit in Mumbai.

Maharashtra’s current economy stands at $400 billion. Modi recalled that when India’s economy joined the $1 trillion club, it created headlines. “But later everything went down in scams and there was talk about Fragile Five. Now, in the last three years, the talk has gained traction and credence that India could well join the 5 trillion dollar club,” Modi said.

He credited the turnaround to policy interventions, decisions, reforms, improvement in the ease of doing business parameters, and good governance. Modi pointed out that his government in the last three to four years had abolished more than 1,400 outdated laws. “The new laws that are being made are meant to simplify things and reduce human interface. We are building a transparent ecosystem in the country, simplifying laws, procedures.”

Also seated on the dais were Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis; Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ltd; Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd; Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group; Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Group; Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta Resources; Baba Kalyani, managing director at Bharat Forge; Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group; Hyun-Joon Cho, chairman, Hyosung; Gil Ho Bang, chairman, Posco India; Edward Monser, president, Emerson; Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for surface transport and shipping; Suresh Prabhu, Union minister for commerce; and railway minister Piyush Goyal.

Modi said summits like Magnetic Maharashtra were an example of “co-operative and competitive federalism” and that each Indian state was organizing such summits to attract investment. “This was a trend that Gujarat started and each state has started following it,” he said.

Modi complimented Maharashtra for its leadership in attracting foreign direct investments and its infrastructure-led growth model. He mentioned the 700-km Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi corridor as a project of scale that would help Maharashtra take a quantum leap and generate at least 2.5 million jobs.

Earlier, Fadnavis said the summit was a convergence of business, political and thought leadership. Giving a report card of the state’s progress since the Make in India week in February 2016, the CM said the state had signed MoUs worth Rs8 trillion. “Of these, agreements worth Rs4.91 trillion are under implementation which represents a conversion rate of 61%. Of this Rs4.91 trillion, projects worth Rs72,000 crore are already into production and MoUs worth Rs1.66 trillion are at different stages of implementation,” Fadnavis said.