Tamil Nadu came second after Chhattisgarh in attracting fresh investment in the second quarter of this fiscal. It topped the list in first quarter.

Tamil Nadu saw 132 new projects worth ₹23,332 crore in Q2, according to a Projex Survey by Projects Today.

When asked how Tamil Nadu slipped to the second spot, a State Government official said, “the State is first in investment in manufacturing. Chhattisgarh got ₹22,000-crore irrigation project, which is a government project. That is why they are higher in numbers. However, we did around ₹18,000 crore in Q1 and ₹23,000 crore in Q2 — all pure private and industrial investment.”

A couple of data centre projects and a solar cell and modules project helped Tamil Nadu to be the second preferred State of project promoters, the report said.

Chhattisgarh had 124 projects but the value was higher at ₹35,771 crore in the form of 114 projects in the second quarter of the current fiscal.

The ₹22,653-crore Bodhghat Irrigation project and a couple of mining projects worth ₹8,197 crore by South Eastern Coalfields helped Chhattisgarh to top the investment table in the second quarter.

Karnataka was ranked third attracting ₹19,958.9 crore in investment with the highest number of new projects, 287. Gujarat and Maharashtra followed suit with fresh investments of ₹15,532.1 crore and ₹15,004 crore, respectively, the report said.

During Q2, fresh investment proposals across the country increased by 67.2 per cent in terms of new projects and by 107 per cent in terms of projects investment on Q-o-Q basis.

In all, 2,219 new projects entailing a total investment of ₹2,19,170 crore were announced during this quarter. In the preceding quarter, the country had seen announcement of 1,327 new projects worth ₹1,05,818 crore.

On a Y-o-Y basis, fresh investment during Q2 registered a fall of 11.32 per cent. In the first quarter of FY21, such decrease was a steep 72.6 per cent.

The Q-o-Q comparison was done to see the effect of lifting the lockdown on projects investment in India, the report said.

Private investments

The private sector accounted for around 40 per cent of the new projects and 67 per cent of the fresh investment announced in Q2.

The complete lockdown of the economy, migration of labour to their home-town disruption of supply chain infrastructure and non-availability of liquidity at reasonable interest rates affected private promoters the most in first quarter.

However, the stage-wise unlocking of the economy from June 2020 onwards saw a jump in the private investment both in terms of number of projects and investment planned therein.

In Q2, the private sector announced 618 new projects worth ₹83,608 crore as against 315 new projects worth ₹44,715 crore announced a quarter ago. In terms of project investment this indicated a rise of 87 per cent. Compared with a year ago statistics, this indicated a fall of just seven per cent.

Govt agencies

Fresh investment announcements by State government-owned agencies increased by 146.3 per cent in the quarter ended September 2020. In all, 1,139 new investment proposals with a total outlay of ₹81,223 crore were announced.

The investment by the Central government-owned agencies increased by 93.2 per cent during the same period. The 462 Centrally-sponsored new projects are expected to bring in a fresh investment of ₹54,339 crore.

While the good monsoon and increase in procurement prices of agri-commodities have raised the hopes of demand revival in coming quarters, early containment of the Covid pandemic, complete unlocking of the economy and increased government spending will nudge the economy back to the high growth orbit, the report said.