The Gujarat Government today informed the state legislative Assembly that it had spent Rs 150.91 crore for organising Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit of 2015 and 2017.
While Rs 79.73 crore were spent in 2015, the state government had incurred an expenditure of Rs 71.18 crore for the last Vibrant Summit held in 2017, said Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in his written reply.
He was responding to a set of questions about the mega biennial event during the Question Hour.
Replying to another question about the MoUs or Investment Intentions(IIs) signed during these two events, the Chief Minister, who also holds the Industry portfolio, said in a written reply that as many as 21,304 such IIs were signed in 2015 while the number was 24,774 in 2017.
Out of the 21,304 IIs signed during 2015, as many as 13,544 projects were already commissioned while 1,977 are under the process of implementation, Rupani said.
Similarly, out of the total 24,774 IIs signed in 2017, 2,899 projects have been already implemented while 3,251 are under the process, the Chief Minister said.
During a debate over the issue in the House today, Congress MLA Jawahar Chavda irked the Treasury benches by seeking to know the number of MoUs signed by diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his business partner Mehul Choksi's firms with Gujarat Government during these two Vibrant Summits.
On behalf of the Chief Minister, state Energy Minister Saurabh Patel alleged that both of them were given loans during the Congress-ruled UPA regime at the Centre.
"All these loans(taken by Modi and Choksi) were given during UPA's tenure. I want to tell you that Vijay Mallya was a close friend of Congress and never invested in Gujarat. He used to say bad things about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and our PM is trying hard to bring him back to India," said Patel.
Responding to another question related to Vibrant Summit, Patel told the Opposition benches that though many CEOs of different companies took part in Vibrant Summits, "they were not given any loans by the state government".
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