In spite of the Covid-pandemic and resultant lockdowns, investments commitments by companies continue to flow in Maharashtra.

Since March 2020, companies have committed about ₹50,000 crore of investments in the State, and another ₹60,000 crore is expected in the next five to six months, said CEO of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), P Anbalagan.

Data centre hub

The Maharashtra government on Monday evening had signed MoUs worth ₹34,850 crore with 15 companies. Out of the 15, seven are in the data centre space. A large player in data centre business, Netmagic IT Services, is planning another data centre with ₹10,555-crore investment, while Adani Enterprises is also planning a data centre with a ₹5,000-crore investment.

MIDC is the industrial development arm of the State government and is facilitating the investments by allocating land in its industrial areas. MIDC land holdings are about 84,000 hectares, and they control about 281 fully developed industrial estates.

In a telephonic interaction with BusinessLine , Anbalagan said the business community continues to be engaged with the Maharashtra government and MIDC. Some companies do not want to get into an MoU but want to directly invest in the State. A Russian company wants to directly invest about ₹1,000 crore in Aurangabad district, but it could even increase to ₹4,000 crore, he said.

He said that Adani Group plans to have data centres in Navi Mumbai and Pune, which are rapidly emerging as the data centre hubs of the country. Adani’s data centres will have a 100 per cent solar backup.

The CEO said Bharat Electronics, the Centre-owned aerospace and defence company, has also been allocated land at Butibori MIDC area near Nagpur. The company has not entered into an MoU with the Maharashtra government, but land allocation has started. BEL will require about 150 acres for defence equipment manufacturing. It is planning about an initial investment of over ₹500 crore, which will eventually be scaled up.

Commenting on large investments in the data centre space, Arvind Goel, MD and CEO of Tata AutoComp Systems, and Chairman, CII Maharashtra State Council, said that with these MoUs, the State has laid a strong foundation for building a competitive economic landscape. With significant investments in data centres, Maharashtra truly has the potential of becoming the largest data storage hub in the world, he said.