New Bihar Emerging As Potential Biz Hub

The focus will now shift to start converting the MoUs into projects, according requisite sanctions and approvals. If they need the allotments of land, we have to allot them land - Nitish Mishra, Industries and Tourism Minister, Bihar

Patna: ‘Ab humara samay hai’ - The time for Bihar has come, said state’s Industries and Tourism Minister Nitish Mishra after it received a record Rs1.81 lakh crore worth of investment proposals in its only second investor meet.

Mishra said the focus will now shift to providing all the promised support to the investors so that the units could start quickly. “I am very happy personally and very satisfied, and I am thankful to my team in the industry department who has been for the last few months working on their toes, holding a series of events in different states, interacting with the business community, trying to pitch Bihar and the advantage Bihar,” he said.

The state signed with an array of companies’ memorandum of understanding (MoUs), committing Rs1.81 lakh crore of investment at the second edition of the Bihar Business Connect investor summit last week. “To be very honest, even we were not expecting this kind of figure,” he said. “From now on it will be the emergence of a new Bihar.” After the mega success of the investor meeting, the investing community started treating Bihar as an attractive designation for even private capital.

“I think the myth, which was there or the perception which the people had about Bihar (of the state being less investor-friendly), has gone. Now, it is a complete emergence of a new Bihar under the leadership of Nitish Kumar ji, and I am very positive that in years to come when these MoUs are converted into projects, it will have a big effect, big impact,” he noted. Hitherto considered a laggard, the state signed investment commitments with 423 companies at its only second investor meet, Bihar Business Connect 2024, on December 19-20. Sun Petrochemicals will invest Rs36,700 crore in renewable energy projects, including pump hydro and solar plants. Adani Group, which is the largest private investor in the state, committed to investing about Rs28,000 crore in setting up an ultra-supercritical thermal power plant as well as expanding cement production capacity, food processing and logistics businesses.

NTPC Green, the renewable energy arm of the state-owned electricity generating giant, has committed to investing Rs10,000 crore in clean energy projects. SJVN, formerly known as Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam, committed a similar amount for the pump storage project.