Nagpur may miss out on Boeing's proposed investment of $100 million for the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility as other states, including Tamil Nadu, are understood to be aggressively wooing the aircraft manufacturing company. | |
| The US-based aircraft manufacturer wishes to set up an MRO base in India along with a $75-million pilot-training facility. The MRO facility is expected to come handy for Boeing, as Air India, which has recently proposed to acquire 68 jets from the aircraft manufacturing company, has emerged as one of its major customers. |
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| A high-powered team from Boeing, led by its president and CEO Alan Mulally, had called on the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh early in January and made the proposal. |
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| Deshmukh had suggested Nagpur as a possible location for the project. The CM had visited Boeing's headquarters in Seattle, USA, last year and invited the company to invest in Maharashtra. |
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| Later on, a team led by Boeing's senior vice-president for international sales, Dinesh Keskar, reached Nagpur on Sunday and held discussions with the district administration, as well as Maharashtra Airport Development Corporation's (MADC's) managing director, R C Sinha. |
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| The senior bureaucrat, who has always been upbeat about the city, has been pressing for Nagpur as the best location for the Boeing project, as MADC is working on a proposed special economic zone (SEZ) project there. |
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| However, Nagpur has had its share of disappointments in the past. A car plant, a rail coach factory, the radar unit of Bharat Electricals, and now perhaps, Boeing. The city's hopes have been shattered many times. |
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| Sources said that an international engineering consultancy firm Frischmann Prabhu, which is working closely with Boeing for identifying a suitable place and subsequently constructing the MRO base in India, had booked a posh apartment at Nagpur to be used as a company guest house. The booking was cancelled from London on Monday, only a day after the team from Boeing visited Nagpur. |
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| Keskar said that other states such as Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi too were in the race for attracting the investment. Keskar had made it clear that the state offering best facilities and maximum concessions would be preferred. |
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| With no political support to the investment proposal after the Maharashtra CM made the initial offer, other states have reportedly stepped in with better offers. Leading the bandwagon is Tamil Nadu. |
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| When contacted for comments over Boeing's possible decision in favour of Tamil Nadu, Sinha said many states were trying to net the investment. "They were here on January 29 and a day later, if somebody says they have cancelled...I cannot comment on such rumours," he said. |
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| Sinha said, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat were also trying to win Boeing over and each state was showcasing its own advantages. "Boeing has to make that decision," he remarked. |
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| Sources now say that Boeing may have almost firmed up its plans for Tamil Nadu, thanks to the state's strong pitch. The southern state already has a big presence of auto giants and boasts of a good industrial culture. |
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| Tamil Nadu figures among the first three places in the country in terms of industrial output, value addition, number of factories, total workforce employed in factories and foreign direct investments. |
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| The auto giants that have set up facilities near Chennai include Ford, Hyundai, HM-Mitsubishi, Ashok Leyland, TAFE, etc. Now, BMW too has decided to set up its unit close to Chennai and the city is already being referred to as the "Detroit of India". |
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| Tamil Nadu also boasts of three international airports with good connectivity to USA, Europe, Middle East, and South East Asia. |
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| More importantly, Chennai is a metropolis and the industry there is close to the seat of power. All these factors weigh heavily against Nagpur; not a single politician has gone wooing Boeing and promoting it. |
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| Sources said, a cloudy political climate, where nobody is particularly keen on pushing for Nagpur, may eventually lead to the investment being diverted. That is, if it hasn't already! |
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