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2nd
Round-Table with Shri Jayantrao Patil
on “ Roadmap for Economic Prosperity of Maharashtra”
12th
October 2007
Maharashtra
Economic Development Council organized a special Golden
Jubilee Round table on “Roadmap for Economic Prosperity
of Maharashtra” with Hon’ble Shri Jayantrao
Patil, Finance Minister of Maharashtra on Friday 12th
October 2007.
Shri
Nandkishor Kagliwal, President, MEDC welcomed Shri
Jayantrao Patil and the audience included a gathering
of Industrialists, Corporates, Infrastructure Players, Town
Planners and Economists.
•
Hon’ble Finance Minister of Maharashtra highlighted some of
the major achievements of the state in economic and human
development. He said earlier he has been through different
phases, initially he has seen a number of difficulties in
even supporting the regular day to day meets of the state
government running, but today the situation is completely
different and we are in a good position. He added that “Most
of the experts here are aware that State of Maharashtra, financially
is in a very good condition and we have been repaying the
loan as well as taking care of new development and, in the
last few years the resources have also gone up”
• FM, then elaborated specifically on main topics such as
Value Added Tax (VAT), Infrastructure Development and Equitable
Development.
• He said VAT system is settled and by the time we enter 2009
Government of India and Finance Ministers impared committee
which has already started thinking and we have set up small
group in Delhi which is working to bring us to the GST method.
• He added that second priority is Administration - I am not
so satisfied with the way we govern the state we need to improve
our style of functioning. I have been of the opinion that
we need to bring reforms in our way of running the government
and the way of business processs engineering in every departmental
work. Its my personal opinion its very difficult to bring
into reality that even if a common man writes a letter to
anybody in the department at any level should receive a reply
and not only acknowledgment but reply in a months time.
• He said that today we have various social development aspects
where we have different social justice departments and other
departments and the total size of the governemnt dis matters.
• “ The World Bank report on investment climate in countries
for 2007 places India at the 134th rank in terms of factors
that facilitate setting up of businesses. At my last visit
to a World Bank conference, several experts on India told
me that if Mumbai is developed properly, India could climb
to the 94th rank, Mr Patil said. He admitted that the interaction
concluded with a responsibility on him if Maharashtra and
Mumbai improves, its quite clear that the average is mainly
based on Mumbai’s observation if this improves then India
will go above Pakistan because today India is lower than Pakistan
in this rating, he then said, we will set up a small group
Mr Subodh Kumar, Finance Secretary is already working on it
and mostly in a month or two months time or in my budget I
will be able to declare that these hurdles that government
has are removed and NOT WE WILL REMOVE.
• Another important point addressed was Equitable development
of Maharashtra.
We have been receiving the proposals for investment which
are mostly around Mumbai, Pune and at the most are at Nasik
& Raigad district and the scenario is the investors are
not even ready to go to Aurangabad. While some units in IT
sectors have gone to Nagpur. Most of the districts which falls
in between Mumbai, Nanded and Nagpur are of no industrial
areas and it’s a challenge in bringing investments in the
remote areas of Maharashtra but why should we think of this
ill tell u “ Jointly we have worked and conducted a report
on Human Development Indexes along with our planning department
and UNDP which came out in the year 2002, says that we are
very poor in human development index in the region of Marathwada
and some parts of Vidharbha. This is where we should concentrate
our developmental efforts and HDI, we arrived at the HDI figure
with the help of education, health and livelihood these 3
factors affect HDI and these regions are poor in many districts.
There is a vast diff in the living conditions in Mumbai when
we compare to Nandurbar and Gadchiroli.
• The solution is not asking the Industrialist to go to these
regions and improve the situation. We have formed a small
mission a H D Mission this is second year we have spent around
50 cr last year and this year its 60 cr and what this mission
is doing is concentrating on improving the quality of education.
Health department is also being taken into confidence and
we are trying to improve certain parameters which are low
in these districts. Today we have taken 2 Talukas from each
district, so we cannot say that we are improving the HDI of
whole district but this is just on a trial basis.
• Lastly I personally feel these days unless we create better
infrastructure then we won’t be able to compete with other
states, now many states have come very close in investment
competition with Maharashtra, there was time when there was
no competition with maharashtra. But the states like Karnatak,
Tamilnadu , Andra Pradesh, Gujarat have tried their best in
last decade and have been competing with Maharashtra. So we
need to be more innovative and advanced in ideas in bringing
infrastructure in place or else we will ultimately loose the
race, to avoid this situation, this is the right time that
Maharashtra is trying hard in last 3-4 years to attract investments
and industry secretaries have been telling us how tough the
competition is. We need to think about new projects of infrastructure,
he added.
• The State Government is thinking of Introducing and Expanding
our Airports at the same time Mumbai in Maharashtra did think
of express way then why not government of India think about
express highways? Is it only the responsibility of state government
that sate government can design and complete express highways
and government of India should never think of express highways
and we must think of some length mainly in the central part
of India we should go for express highways.
• Railways – we should think and have to be more modern rails
as far as railways are concern and now people are running
for time and time is the essence and we must think of it.
India is gearing up and no modern infrastructure will come
in place, I asked the airport authority about the air strip
that Mumbai only have one air strip why cant we use JUHU airport
for smaller planes at least and he said its possible and I
asked him why not we go inside the sea and have a parallel
air strip, he said yes they will look into it. I think this
will reduce atleast the air congestion.
• He said that “I have made a presentation to state government
and I have studied how train system works around the world
I went to Uno Trans exhibition in Berlin and spent around
4-5 days although its not a state government issue but then
too I made a presentation on how we can improve connectivity.
• Soon Bullet trains will be introduced. At least the Maharashtra
Government is pushing ahead with the proposal to introduce
high-speed trains between Mumbai and Nagpur via Nanded. “
We have resolved to carry out the project since only speed
can take state of maharashtra ahead of its competitors not
only in India but also abroad” he said the government is expecting
the feasibility report on the plant within six to seven months
and the it has already decided to appoint an international
consultant, probably from Germany or France, to conduct a
feasibility study. Mr. Patil said these passenger trains would
run on an independent corridor at a speed of 300 km per hour
and the goods trains at 160-180 km per hour. “It looks fantastic,
but we have not yet worked out the cost, which is going to
be very high. Yet, we have resolved to carry out the project,”
Patil said.
• He said better and faster connectivity between backward
parts of Maharashtra would lead to lateral industrial growth,
local level employment generation, and improvement in the
human development index in those regions.
• He said about the growth on population, in this democratic
setup, no political party can afford to stop rural people
from coming to cities for jobs. The only feasible solution
could be developing other cities as centres of economic and
industrial growth, he added.
• “Mumbai has planned for metro rail from andheri to ghatkopar
and charkop to bandra and bandra to the other side of the
city and the for the first connection work has started and
the rest are under tendering process and the work of the same
will start very soon, and technically we have decided and
insisted that whatever we do in the island city should be
underground no over head metro rails whatever the price is
and the government has accepted and there will be underground
train from colaba to bandra and from bandra it will come and
go as a normal metro overhead,” he listed out such efforts
being made by the state to transform Mumbai into a world-class
city.”
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