Rajasthan has conquered the first frontier of drawing investment commitments in the Rising Rajasthan Global Summit. Perhaps, this is the second largest investment summit in the country organised so far with a commitment of over Rs 35 lakh crore. Uttar Pradesh is the largest with investment pledge worth Rs 40 lakh crore.
Before launching the Rising Rajasthan activities which were carried out for more than four months, Rajasthan government studied the success story of investment summit organised by Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh governments. While Gujarat could attract investment commitments worth Rs 26.33 lakh crore, Uttar Pradesh piped the western state by clock investment commitment of Rs 40 lakh crore in the summit organised in 2023. Out of that UP has already done ground breaking ceremony for projects worth more than Rs 10 lakh crore in February this year.
Too steep a target
The total annual expenditure of Rajasthan is targeted at Rs 3.34 lakh crore while the annual receipt is 2.65 lakh crore. The investment proposals worth Rs 35 lakh crore is 10 times the annual budget of Rajasthan spread over four years.
While attracting such scale of investment was a tough task, bringing the proposals on ground would be a Herculean task.
In simple mathematics, the proposals worth Rs 35 lakh crore have to see the day light in four years from now, that is 1440 days.
So for implementing the proposals in letter and spirit, the government will have to work at the run rate of implementing Rs 2,430 crore per day for next four years.
Looking at the past performance, this looks a far fetched dream for the state government.
Prakash Bhandari is a veteran journalist with over 50 years of experience. He has worked with The Times of India for 30 years and contributed to leading publications as well as international news agency AFP.
