SEMICONDUCTOR HEAT

The Centre, as well as the Maharashtra government, come under heavy fire from critics as VedantaFoxconn shifts its Rs 1.54 lakh crore semiconductor project from the state to poll-bound Gujarat 

- Kiran D. Tare

Nothing could have been more embarrassing for Eknath Shinde, less than three months after he was sworn in as Maharashtra's chief minister following a political coup that dislodged Uddhav Thackeray-the state has lost India's biggest-ever corporate investment in a greenfield project to neighbouring Gujarat. The Rs 1.54 lakh crore semiconductor project, a joint venture (JV) between Taiwanese firm Foxconn and the Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group, slipped out of Maharashtra's grasp just as it was in the final stages of negotiations with the investors. None of Shinde's assurances of bringing in more investments in the future will douse the fire of allegations that the state government was "lethargic" in the matter and that the investment was moved to poll-bound Gujarat at the behest of the BJPled NDA government at the Centre.

Maharashtra, it seems, had actually extended a more attractive offer to the JV than its neighbour. The state government had approved a Rs 40,000 crore incentive package for Vedanta-Foxconn and also identified a plot in Talegaon near Pune for the plant. Gujarat, on the other hand, has offered the company an incentive package of Rs 12,000 crore and apparently started searching for land for the project only after the Opposition in Maharashtra went up in arms against the BJP-led Centre's 'betrayal'. Vijay Nehra, secretary, science and technology, Gujarat, told reporters on September 18, five days after the deal with Vedanta-Foxconn, that a site may be finalised in a couple of weeks.

MISSING THE BUS