Amid the pre-Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit (VGGIS) hype, did Chief Minister Narendra Modi get his investment sweepstakes math all wrong?

If figures, as of November 29, 2008, provided by the state government’s own Industries Commissioner in response to an RTI application are correct, Modi’s claims about committed investments that have come into Gujarat since the last two of these biennial investment melas, as well as the bundling of old, ongoing and expected investments, may be wrong.

Consider this: Modi had on Wednesday claimed a spectacular success rate of 63.5 per cent in terms of implementation of the proposed investments committed in the two earlier VGGIS, in 2005 and 2007. But statistics accessed from the office of the Industries Commissioner under the RTI Act show the actual success rate was only around 25 per cent.

While figures that Modi released peg the total proposed investment inflow from the 229 MoUs signed during the 2005 VGGIS at Rs 106,161 crore, his own government has admitted on record that investments, both commissioned and under implementation, totalled only Rs 74,019 crore as of less than six weeks ago.

Although the data accessed under the RTI Act mentions identical numbers for proposed investment inflow, the number of MoUs is 227 and the quantum of commissioned and under implementation projects’ investment is only Rs 24,978 crore.

On a percentage basis, the actual official figures peg the success rate of VGGIS 2005 at 23.52 per cent, while Modi on Wednesday claimed it was 69.7 per cent.

Similarly, for VGGIS 2007, the data released by the CM and the actual data accessed through the RTI Act says 363 MoUs were signed. However, while the chief minister is pegging the committed investments at Rs 4,61,835 crore, the actual figure his government gave out is Rs 4,51,835 crore— a discrepancy of no less than Rs 10,000 crore.

Again, with regard to commissioned and under implementation investments, the government on Wednesday put this at Rs 2,64,575 crore, indicating a success rate of 57.3 per cent. But figures from the Industries Commissioner show that implemented and under-implementation projects were worth only Rs 1,22,400.66 crore— meaning a success rate of just 27.08 per cent.

GIDC MD says Modi's figures authentic

Maheshwar Sahu, Managing Director of the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), who made the VGGIS 2009, presentation for the state government on Wednesday with Modi by his side quoting those, said he cannot comprehend the huge discrepancies between the figures.

“I have absolutely no idea why and how the state Industries Commissioner came up with such figures in reply to an RTI application. There must be some catch somewhere. The figures that the chief minister himself announced are authentic. We reiterate that over 60 per cent of the proposed investments during the earlier VGGIS have either been commissioned or are under implementation,” he told this newspaper on Thursday. Sahu added that the issue would be inquired into.