Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is one of the youngest politicians in the country and represents the aspirations of young India. His advocacy for business-friendly economic policies is in sync with young Indian economic thought. His push for infrastructure development is the need of the hour for cities like Mumbai. Since decades, Mumbai was neglected by politicians of Maharashtra because it was not the main voter base for parties like Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). These parties used Mumbai as milking cow as the city accounts for a significant amount of tax for central as well as state government. The government used most of the public money in the areas of western Maharashtra, the area from which most of the powerful politicians of the state come from.
On the very day of forming the government Fadnavis made it very clear that he will pursue business-friendly policies for economic growth of the state. He aims to make the state 1 trillion dollar economy by 2025 from the current 370 billion. This will be 20 percent of the 5 trillion national GDP which central government hopes to reach by 2025. The state wants to move from agriculture to services for high economic growth. Fadnavis wants to make Mumbai a fin-tech hub of Asia because its time zone is suitable for that. “Our big focus is on fin-tech (financial technology). We have not leveraged Mumbai’s recognition as the financial capital of India. Fin-tech is an emerging field which not only opens up a lot of job opportunities but is also one of the fastest growing fields”, Fadnavis said in an interview.
The other high tech sector which Maharashtra wants to lead is defense and aerospace industry. The government approved a defense and aerospace production policy, aiming to attract $2 billion investment in five years and create 1 lakh jobs. To support this industry a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to provide initial working capital to the small and medium enterprises in defense and aerospace will be created. The government worked hard to bring FDI in the state and this resulted in a threefold increase in the total foreign investment in 2017 comparison to 2014. Foxconn the Taiwan based MNC which manufactures gadgets for world’s leading electronics brands, including Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, BlackBerry and Motorola is making an investment of 5 billion in the state. General Motors announced an investment of Rs.6,400 crore in the state. The investment for hardware manufacturing will integrate the whole IT industry which is the crown jewel of the Indian economy.
In the transportation sector, the state is making major investments. Maharashtra is working on lines of cooperative federalism with CM himself traveling to countries across the world to attract investment and establish strong relations at the sub-national level. He visited the US based firm for Virgin hyperloop project which will reduce the travel time between Mumbai and Pune to four hours. The city is also getting a new airport in Navi Mumbai, a coastal way along the Arabian Sea and elevated suburban railway from Fadnavis’ government. The investment in Vidarbha will boost the economic performance of the region. The region will be able to transport its agricultural produce to Mumbai and Pune. So, Fadnavis is the face of new economics in India which will focus on growth and production rather than just distribution. The cutting-edge industries and state of art infrastructure will be part of this.