India’s PDC working with 863 investment projects worth $121 bn

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Project Development Cells (PDC) across ministries of India are currently working with investors to facilitate 863 projects with an investment of $121 billion, with the most being in renewable energy, chemicals and petrochemicals, senior industry department officials said on Wednesday.

Among states, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have seen the highest interest.

Moreover, tenders worth Rs 45,000 crore were either modified or cancelled in the last four years for alleged violations due to grievances from various stakeholders, they said.

“A lot of these 850 plus (projects) are domestic investors as well. 345 cases running into $15 billion is indicative domestic interest in this pipeline and rest is foreign (investment) from various countries,” said Sumita Dawra, additional secretary of India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), adding that these are in addition to the applications and applicants under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, though there “may be a certain amount of overlap”.

Of the total 863 investment projects, 272 are Highly Probable (more than 90% probability) worth $41 billion, 279 Moderately Probable (51-90%) proposals worth $69 billion and Long Term (less than 50%) projects worth $11 billion.

The government has mandated that a company or an individual from a country that shares land border with India, can invest in any sector here only after getting government approval. An inter-ministerial committee scrutinises these proposals.

“The IMC has recommended a few projects,” said Manmeet K Nanda, joint secretary DPIIT, noting that such projects are evaluated based on a framework that takes into account how important the project is for a particular sector and how it is seen from a national security perspective.

As per officials, in the last four years, the government received about 1,700 grievances from various stakeholders and above 1,300 have already been successfully resolved and looked into.

This has resulted in about Rs 45,000 crore worth tenders that were either modified or cancelled for alleged violations, they said.

On a decline in foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on the second quarter of the year, they ruled out any reason for alarm. FDI into India in the July-September quarter of 2021-22 fell a sharp 42% on year at $13.5 billion from $23.4 billion a year ago.

“In the last quarter there was a dip (in FDI) but I feel a quarter is a very small period to understand fdi inflow. FDI inflow has increased 4% in the last six months…there is nothing to be alarmed at all,” said Nanda.

As per an official statement, the DPIIT is coordinating Action Plans for 15 manufacturing sectors, while the Department of Commerce is coordinating for 12 service sectors. DPIIT is also working closely with 24 sub-sectors which have been chosen keeping in mind the Indian industries strengths and competitive edge, need for import substitution, potential for export and increased employability. (The Economic Times)