Correspondent, Ahmedabad: Hitting out at the ‘rumour mongers’ , three leading Industrial houses today claimed that they have created over 2.36 lakh direct and indirect job opportunities in Gujarat from the projects for which MoU’s were singed during last 2 editions of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, a pet event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who in the capacity of the then chief minister of Gujarat had started this biennial investors meet in 2003.

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has claimed to have created the maximum number of jobs with 52000 direct employment opportunities and over 1.42 lakh indirect ones. Essar group has created 25 to 30 thousand direct/indirect jobs while Welspun has created more than 12,000 such jobs.

Addressing a joint press conference here at the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) today along with representatives of other 3 industrial houses Adnani Torrent and Zydus to counter the ‘rumours’ about the alleged non-creation of proportionate job opportunities through the MoU’s signed during the last seven editions of the Vibrant Gujarat Global summits, the RIL, Welspun and Essar put forth the employment figures. All the six Industrial groups also put investment and execution figures for the MoU’s signed during the last two editions ie the ones held in 2013 and 2015.

RIL Group President (Corporate Affairs) and Rajya Sabha MP Parimal Nathwani said that so far his group has signed MoU’s worth total Rs 2.37 lakh crore investment during all the 7 editions of the event held so far. In the last two events RIL singed MoU’s to the tune of Rs one lakh crore but during the period the actual investment has crossed Rs 1.25 lakh crores. Of it Rs 92000 crores of investment has been done at Jamnagar alone.

He said that RIL has created 52000 direct (6000 for Jio alone) job opportunities and over 1.42 lakh indirect ones in Gujarat during the period. Around 90% of those employed directly are Gujaratis while owing to lack of local labourers most of the indirect ones are from states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, UP and West Bengal. With 1.42 lakh labourers working at company’s one site at Jamnagar it has become the largest such site in the country.

‘Through such projects RIL is paying VAT of Rs 3600 crore per annum to the government of Gujarat. Apart from this Gujarat Maritime Board was earning Rs 550 crore from our cargo handling. The state government was getting Rs 450 crore from our other activities. We have also done extensive CSR activities in 7000 remote villages of the state and spend Rs 335 crores,’ he said.

Rajiv Agrawal of Essar Group said that the company has so far completed 80 % of the MoU’s worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore signed during the Vibrant Gujarat summits and created 25 to 30 thousand direct/indirect jobs. He said that the MoU’s singed during the event are easier to execute owing to preference give to them.

Chintan Thaker of Welspun group said that of the total Rs 30 to 40 thousand crore investment proposals Rs 13 to 15 thousand crores MoU’s were singed during the last two events held in 2013 and 2015. Of these 66% have either been completed or under execution. Around 12000 jobs have been created through it mainly in Kutch area of Gujarat.

Pranav Adani of Adani Group said that the company had pledged Rs 15000 crore investment in the last two events of which over 75% have been implemented or under execution. Jayesh Desai of Torrent Group said that his group singed Rs 2000 crore MoU’s of which most have been executed.

Zydus Cadila group head and national Chairman of FICCI Pankaj Patel said that his group has invested over Rs 750 crore.

All of them praised the investment friendly environment in the state and decried the rumours regarding the alleged failure of the events in job creation.

Mr Patel said that in 2003 the success rate of MoU’s was 56% which has reached 72% for 2015 event.

To a query Mr Nathwani said that there were several reasons for many MoU’s not seeing the light of the day. ‘Some are dropped by the companies themselves. Some are not viable while some fail to make it owing to lack of pollution clearance and other technical issues. Still the figure of 66 % success of MoU’s is a good figure. So far 51738 MoU’s were singed in all during Vibrant Gujarat summit of which 30650 are complete and 4014 are under execution showing a 66% success rate.

To a query Mr Nathwani said that demonetization will not have any effect on the coming edition of the even in January 2017. The effect of demonetization is a temporary event. It will not have any effect on the summit.

DeshGujarat