Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has informed the Madras high court that 2,900 investors have registered online for participating in the Global Investors Meet, scheduled to be held on January 23 and 24, and 260 MoUs are expected to be generated and Rs 2.52 lakh crore is the expected investment from the MoUs.
Advocate-general Vijay Narayan made the submission when the PILs from Cascade Energy Pvt Ltd, a Singapore based company, came up for hearing before a division bench comprising justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam.
The advocate-general said the state government spends money for holding the GIM. The purpose of the GIM was to facilitate the meeting between investors from abroad and India, besides public sector companies. In the meeting, the parties meet and enter into MOUs. Similar meetings are conducted in other states. The investment is finalised at the time of signing the contract. The state government has no role to play in ascertaining the genuineness of the investors. The state government’s job was only to facilitate the meeting. “We want to generate employment,” he added.
He said the website for GIM was opened on July 2, 2018 and 900 people have registered through online registration. Six countries viz UK, France, Korea, Japan, Australia and Singapore, were sending their representatives. The government will accommodate them. Private investors have to make their own arrangement for accommodation. 260 MOUs were expected to be generated. '2.52 lakh crore was the expected investment from the MOUs. But how much will eventually come depends on what the investors agree and finalise. The investors very often use their own private land. If they seek land from the government, the government will provide it, he added.
At this juncture, the bench intervened and asked why steps were not being taken to remove encroachments that increase day by day. “Look at the CAG report. You only published it. Instead of providing land, you can remove the encroachment and give the same to the companies,” the bench said.
Earlier, senior counsels S. Prabakaran and P. Wilson, appearing for the petitioner, had submitted that the petitioner was not against holding the meeting. What the petitioner wanted was framing of guidelines by the government to safeguard the interests of investors since the petitioner was allegedly cheated last time. The company in its petition sought to restrain the state government from conducting the GIM until guidelines were framed to safeguard the interest of foreign investors.
After hearing arguments from both sides the bench reserved orders.
