Gujarat gets investments worth $140 billion
Chennai: Gujarat has attracted investments worth of $140 billion from the three Global Investors' Summits held in the state in the last five years, state chief minister Narendra Modi said.

After the conclusion of the Global Investors' Summit-2007 held on January 12 and 13, 352 MoUs were inked aggregating prospective investments worth Rs4,61,835 crore, he said.

Modi said SEZs in Gujarat would be a model for India's driving force of future economic progress as land acquisition was not a problem. He added that so far 33 SEZs had been approved and not a single case of controversy had emerged and it was the only State to have less than 0.5 pc loss of mandays with utmost peaceful labour.

The Planning Commission had asked Gujarat to achieve a growth rate of 11.2 pc. Modi said agriculture would be a thrust area for achieving this target. The State had planned to achieve 13 pc growth in agriculture while the natural growth rate was only 4 pc.

Modi also added that unlike Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat has not had a single case of farmers' suicide.
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Singur again scene of hot clashes
Singur: A large group of farmers turned violent and tried to violate prohibitory orders by marching to Singur, where work has begun on the Tata Motors' small car project. The police had to resort to use of batons and teargas to control the farmers.

Officials said clashes broke out when members of the farmer's committee led by the opposition Trinamool Congress tried to proceed to Singur by breaking barricades put up by police at Maheswarpur and Dankuni on Durgapur Expressway and at Nalikul in Hooghly district.

People protesting the acquisition of farm land for the project turned violent and clashed with police.

Dredging of the Julkia canal at the project site in Singur began yesterday with 500 people being engaged by Tata Motors for this purpose. Another 500 people were employed for the work today, officials said.
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Economists say 8 pc growth sustainable
New Delhi: Economists in the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council say there has been a remarkable turnaround in investments by the private corporate sector in the last few years, giving indications that the 8 per cent plus growth of the country's economy is sustainable.

Macro-economic data analysis by these economists shows that the capital formation in the private sector as a share in gross domestic capital formation has moved from 18 per cent in 2000-01 to a growth of 25-30 per cent in 2003-04. Significantly, capital formation in the public sector has kept growing, rising from a negative four per cent in 2000-01 to a positive 11.8 per cent in 2003-04, giving further hope for a sustained growth in the economy.

Supporting data has revealed that the investments in real terms have been growing at 15-16 per cent between 2002 and 2005 — years for which actual data is available — and estimates show similar rates of growth in 2005-06 and 2006-07.

In economic terms, this means the contribution of investment (gross domestic capital formation) to GDP growth has been rising since 2000-01 going up from a negative 1.17 per cent to a positive 4.20 per cent in 2004-05.
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