Four automobile majors including Bajaj auto, Tata motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and German car manufacture Volkswagen have signed agreements with Maharashtra government on Thursday to invest Rs. 11,510 crores in Maharashtra.
Companies agreed to sign the agreement after settlement of dispute over the refund Of VAT (Value added Tax) with the state government. Tata motors, Volkswagen and Mahindra will expand their plants at Chakan in Pune while Bajaj will facilitate its Waluj plant located in Aurangabad.
According to the agreement, Mahindra and Tata will invest Rs. 4000 crore each, Volkswagen will invest Rs. 1510 crore and Bajaj auto will spend Rs. 2000 crore. Chief Minister of state Prithviraj Chauhan, state ministers, Volkswagen executive director, M&M chairman and Tata motors executive director were present on the occasion.
Prior to these agreements, Maharashtra government has signed about 32 agreements with companies such as Mercedes, Bosche etc with the total amount of investment of Rs. 23,850 crores.
This investment will create about 4000+ fresh jobs which are good for the government as well as job seekers.
In 2011, the state government imposed in net sales not on gross sales. Many automakers said this rigid tax system will ruin the competitiveness of Chakan auto hub and some of them even threatened to pull out the investment from that place. But now things seems to settle down with these agreements.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said, “A set of decisions that we have recently taken makes Maharashtra the most attractive destination, especially for the automobile industry. There are a few irritants that are still left in the industrial policy, but as we go ahead we will keep fine-tuning it.” “The decision taken recently makes us the most attractive destination to invest in the auto industry. I can claim that no other state has offered such a package of incentive as we have,” added CM Chavan.
