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The preparation of 7th Vibrant Gujarat Summit, which is planned during 11th to 13th January 2015 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India have began well ahead by the Government of Gujarat after the Vibrant Gujarat 2013 Summit resounding success.Last summit has given an example of a visionary approach of the Government of Gujarat towards inclusive and sustainable development.The sixth edition of the summit provided enormous prospects to the State to display its strengths, progressive stand, initiatives taken to improve governance, investor friendly climate and art & culture of Gujarat.

Six summits held so far have been a resounding success that immensely contributed to transformation of Gujarat into a “Global Business Hub”. The brand “Vibrant Gujarat” began as an “investors’ summit” has now evolved into an ideal platform for knowledge sharing, social and business transformation. The Summit gradually evolved into a round-the-year investment promotion exercise with events scheduled well in advance of the main Summit planned in 2015.The prime focus of Government of Gujarat is Inclusive development and the key areas for development identified included:Innovation, Sustainability, Youth & Skill Development, Knowledge Sharing and Networking. Also, this Summit is an ideal convergence for other states and other countries to showcase their strengths, highlight business opportunities, facilitate knowledge dissemination etc. It also provides an attractive opportunity to its participants to understand the potential of Gujarat in various sectors. Besides, it provides platform to interact with policy makers, industry leaders, and renowned academicians from all over the world.

It isn’t a metro city. Yet, Vadodara ensures that most metros of India run.

Millions in urban India remain on the move everyday because of ‘Made in Baroda’ cars, tyres and even metro rail coaches.

It isn’t a metro city, yet, Vadodara makes most metros of India run. From providing tyres, cars and now even metro coaches, the 50-kilometre radius of vadodara has ensured that millions in urban India remain on the move everyday.

This is the city, which had started its journey by providing small circuit breakers to Indian Railways. Today, the ‘Made in Baroda’ tag has spread to the national capital – Delhi, financial capital – Mumbai and the IT hub Banglore.

Soon, It will ‘power’ pink City Jaipur: Not just India, coaches manufactured from small town – Savli – will ensure that commuters in South Australian capital city Adelaide enjoy a comportable ride in what will be Australia’s most modern trains.

If US carmaker General Motors (GM) was the first automobile giant to come to Gujarat and set up a plant at Halol way back in 1996, country’s largest bike-maker Hero Motocorp Ltd (HMCL) will now drive into the region by parking itself just next to GM investing Rs 1,200 Crore in central Gujarat’s auto pocket.

In early 1990s, Apollo Tyres had already started supplying radial tyres from its Limda plant, which is now its flagship and largest manufacturing facility.

From Limda, where Apollo has invested nearly Rs 2,000 Crore, with a total production capacity of 520 metric tones per day, around 10,000 tyres for commercial vehicles and 15,000 tyres for passenger vehicles roll out everyday.

In recent times, central Gujarat’s share in automobile sector has only increased with RPG Enterprises flagship company CEAT  setting up Rs 700 Crore radial tyre plant at Halol from where it will manufacture 12 million tyres.

In fact, multi nationals like ABB and Bombardier have travelled a full circle in this city.

From the time ABB commenced operations of its first factory at Maneja in 1967 with circuit breakers for railways, this very facility now supplies power transformers, voltage transformers, circuit breakers and service support for maintenance of switch yards to metro projects.

It is the Maneja facility that ‘powers’ the Delhi Metro project executed by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and Bangalores metro rail project – Namma metro.

After winning Rs 75 Crore  order from DMRC, ABB will also provide power solutions for Jaipur’s Mass Rapi Transport System which is expected to carry around 11,000 commuters per hour on each rail corridor in Rajasthan’s Capital.

Canadian Bombardier, which had started its first factory to manufactures converters to power trains like Rajdhani in 1997, spread its base by setting up country’s first private metro rail coach factory at Savli in 2008.

With Savli, where for the first time robatic welding technology is being used to manufacture rail coaches – Bombardier Transportation India has created the way for every southeast Asian to travel in metro coaches manufactured from vadodara. While Savli site is presently involve in manufacture and supply of semi-finished FLEXX Metro 3001 coaches for Adelaide’s suburban rail network in Australia, it will also assemble and deliver diesel locomotives to Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. (EMD) for its export to Southeast Asia and the pacific region.

All these, even as GM India’s Halol plant is presently undergoing capacity expansion. With GM India’s plan to introduce light commercial vehicles going forward, Halol alone will have a capacity of 1,10,000 units.

(Published in Times of India Vadodara on Tuesday February 12 2013)

Much before auto giants – be it US carmaker General Motors or homegrown Tata Motors – started eyeing Gujarat, Setco Automotive had started a small plant in the tribal belt adjoining Vadodara.  Thirt years to that, Setco today is amon global top five clutch manufacturers.

“When we started, the scenario was different and central tapped. Over the past 15 years, Gujarat has changed, “ says Harish Sheth, chairman and managing director of Kalol-based sefco Automotive, which has grown to become India’s largest medium and heay clutch manufacturer with customers like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Volvo Eicher, AMW and Daimler (Bharat Benz) on board.

The likes of Setco which have investment plans north of Rs 500 Crore in the next five years, are only adding to the growth story as Gujarat is poised to emerge as new auto-hub of the country.

Those in auto component sector in and around Vadodara are upbeat about its future and say that with automobile industry coming up in a big way at Halol, Sanand and Bahucharaji, things will only look up.

“Components can reach Sanand and Bahucharaji within a matter of hours. Manufacturers here can take advantage of the situation,” says Jaimin patel, managing director of shyam facturing of automobile Suspensions.

“The city has excellent connectivity and it is possible to make deliveries across the country within in a reasonable frame of time.  The manufacturing sector scorers above other parts of the country because of connectivity, power availability and skilled workers,” adds Bhavik khera, managing director of sameer Linkages private Limited.

Unnat Desai, director of a unit manufacturing sheet metal components for auto-industry, observed that the auto-components industry in the city is flourishing.

“The engineering sector has matured over the years and vendors as well as sub-vendors have done well. For those  looking to set up automobile manufacturing plants in the state, this is a major consideration in addition  to location, infrastructure and state’s policies,” says Desai.

“With country’s largest bike maker Hero Motocorp Ltd driving into the region, Prospects are very good for MSMEs. Many ancillaries had started their journey by supplying components to  auto hubs like pune and now there are more ancillaries to back up the sector in Gujarat,” says Jatin Bhatt, Immediate past president of vadodara Chamber of commerce and Industries (VCCI) and owner of Auto Industries Company, which supplies brass, steel and aluminum auto  components to auto majors like Tata Motors and General Motors India.

“Automobile sector requirements are quite complex. Though components look small, they have to pass through a series of mechanical and heat treatments. Vadodara region is highly advanced to meet all this rat shah, Owner of polyphase Motor, which supplies motors for precision grade machine tools used by auto ancillary units.

The cities were ranked based on a primary survey of 50 cities and secondary data from government records. Nine categories were chosen to rank the cities which were weighed on various parameters. Then 65 measures in each category were aggregated. Giving equal weightage to each category, the categories were aggregated to get the overall index.

Winners and Why they made it:

Overall
Best City:  Chennai
Emerging City Vadodara
Parameters Quality of classrooms, expenditure on education, crime rates, economic growth and investment generation.

Public Services
Best City: Shimla
Emerging City: Vadodara
Parameters: Penetration of LPG usage, frequency of power cuts, sewerage and water supply system

Gujarat bags five awards, Vadodara ranked overall best emerging city, Gandhinagar, Surat and Rajkot also awarded in different categories

Gujarat has been adjudged with five prestigious “India Today- Best City Awards-2013” in different categories at a function held here. While Vadodara bagged the award for overall best emerging city, Gandhinagar and Surat ranked best cities in category of Crime & Safety, Rajkot for Housing & Transport and Vadodara again for Public Services. All the five awards were received by Shri I.P. Gautam, Principal Secretary (Urban Development) of Gujarat Government from Union Minister for Urban Development Shri Kamal Nath here.

The cities were ranked on a primary survey of 50 cities and out of these, 17 cities were shortlisted with five from Gujarat state.

Gujarat has received a number of national and international awards in last decade for Good Governance. Under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi as Chief Minister, Gujarat has developed one of the best infrastructures in the country and created conducive environment for its people to realize their full potential and excel in their chosen vocation.

Gujarat has invigorated the development of its cities and urban spaces with innovative ideas and their speedy implementation for long term, robust urban growth. In the last decade, the State Government has taken a series of initiatives dedicated to urban areas that have generated wonderful results.

Gujarat’s pioneering initiatives in areas such as water management,  disaster management, health care, education, women  empowerment, rural development, industrial development, investment promotion have been studied far and wide and several of them have been replicated and up-scaled in other states of the country.

Recently, Gujarat was adjudged the best Big State for providing citizen security and one of the top three Best Big States for their overall performance at the IBN7 Diamond States Awards.

Shri Bharat Lal, Resident Commissioner also attended India Today award distribution function.

Even as the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) struggles to expand its units in the Vadodara region, private players are setting up industrial parks to meet the requirements of industries seeking to set up plants here, spurred by sops provided by the state government.

Following a government resolution (GR) dated October 2011, at least five industrial parks have come up in the investment regions at Por, Savli and Waghodia. The GR had allowed private players to set up industrial parks with a minimum floor limit of 100 acres, housing at least 30 units each.

“Ancillary units for electrical, electronic and automobile sectors are showing interest in setting up facilities to support companies of these sectors, which are either situated here or plan to come here,” said Kirit Vadalia, who has started three industrial parks, one each at Por, Savli and Waghodia, near GIDC units.

“It is easier to set up industrial parks here than expanding GIDC probably because parks require comparatively smaller chunk of land which can be acquired easily by offering right compensation to the owners. Besides, the government provides sops like rebate on stamp duty,” he added.

Having traditionally attracted investments from chemicals, pharmaceuticals, glass, textiles, fertilizers and petroleum & petrochemicals sectors, the region is now experiencing investments in sectors such as electrical, electronic and automobile, industry insiders said.

According to Industries Department officials, during the recently-concluded Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit, private players pledged to open as many as 80 industrial parks across the state. “The government has so far given in-principle approval to 28 parks, a large number of which are concentrated in Bharuch and Kutch. A substantial number is coming up in the Vadodara region as well,” said a department official.

GIDC officials maintained that the Halol-Savli Special Investment Region (SIR), coming up between Halol in the Panchmahals district and Savli in Vadodara, could make it an attractive investment region.

The SIR would be spread over 123 sq km and target industries from engineering, automobile and electronics sectors. It is one of the 13 SIRs proposed by the government.

Government undertakings from varied sectors such as defense, space, shipbuilding and petroleum industry are exploring possibilities to source engineering products and solutions from the vendors in Gujarat.

Public sector undertakings such as Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian Air Force (IAF) and Mazagon Dock Limited among others are considering to source engineering goods from the manufacturers in and around Vadodara.

In a unique instance, India’s space agency, ISRO has come to Vadodara for selecting engineering and power equipment supplier for its varied applications. The central space agency has set up a stall at the eight edition of mega exhibition by Vadodara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in Vadodara to interact with suppliers of power equipment and engineering goods from and around Vadodara.

“This is for the first time we are participating in a trade faire at Vadodara. Power equipment and other complex engineering applications are our key requirements and we are looking for the vendors for the same from here,” said a representative of ISRO.

Besides ISRO, Indian Air Force too has set up a stall at the 5-day exhibition here at Vadodara. Mazagon Dock Ltd, a public sector shipbuilding major, which makes war ships for the Indian Navy, is also considering to source engineering goods from suppliers in Vadodara.

“We have come to Gujarat to select suitable supplier of engineering products. There are numerous applications in our shipbuilding business, where engineering products in different size and quantity are required. Vadodara is an engineering hub, hence we have come here to select a few vendors,” said a senior official of Mazagon Dock Ltd.

“With an objective to link local industries with national majors, we have set up a vendor development pavilion at the exhibition. We plan to be a facilitator for national players to interact with local vendors and expand business relations,” said Nilesh Shukla, vice-president of VCCI.

Other major PSUs included Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India (ONGC)’s arm, ONGC Petro Additions Limited (OPAL) and Indian Oil Corporation.

New Delhi-based real estate developer – Ashiana Housing Limited – is foraying into Gujarat’s real estate with its first project at Halol near here.

The BSE-listed company is investing Rs 100 crore as it is identifying Gujarat’s industrial clusters as the key destination for its upcoming residential reality projects in the state.

To begin with, the company has plans to set up over 500 units of residential housing projectspread across 10.65 acres in Halol.

“We have taken 10.65 acres land parcel in Halol to develop our first residential project in Gujarat. Land has been converted into non agriculture land,” Ashiana Housing Limited’s vice-president Sunit Gandhi said here on Tuesday while addressing media persons, adding that the land is situated in Kanjari village of Halol taluka.

“Over the years, Gujarat has emerged as the most preferred investment destination. Besides, Ahmedabad and Surat the location which will undergo a sea change and is witnessing sizeable growth is Halol – at the outskirts of Vadodara, the third most populated city of Gujarat,” said Gandhi, adding that with the presence of top multinational companies from varied industries, Halol has opened up doors of opportunities for real estate development.

The company which has developed luxurious residential properties in Lavasa near Pune, expects to receive the remaining approvals for the launch of the Halol project shortly where it is developing low-rise affordable group housing project with total saleable area of nearly 6.40 lakh square feet.

Indsur Global, a part of the Mumbai-based diversified Indsur Group and a leading exporter of power and castings equipments, has completed the first phase of its Rs 150-crore modernisation and expansion project at its Halol plant near here.

The company produces a wide-range of steel pipes, wires, castings and copper wire rods at the plant.

“Most of the Rs 150-crore investment has gone into modernise and expand the capacity to manufacture various critical power infrastructure castings. The new facility would ensure a robust export market share and will compete with China,” Company chairman and managing director S M Lodha told PTI today.

With the completion of the first phase expansion, the capacity at the plant has gone up to 12,500 mt per annum from 7,500 mt. This would be further enhanced to 25,000 mt by March 2015. A substantial portion of the expanded capacity would be used for exports, he added.

With this capacity expansion, the company estimates to increase its market share in Europe from the present 15 per cent to around 25 per cent by 2015, Lodha said.

“We began our modernisation at a time when the global market was down and have begun completing phases of our modernisation as the market, especially is Europe, recovers. Given our already existing reputation in the European market, our investments will put us in a very strong position to increase our marketshare significantly,” Lodha said.

Indsur Global has a significant market presence in Europe especially in Austria, Germany and Italy among others.

Indsur Group has diversified businesses in auto components, castings, steel pipes, thermal engineering etc and has plants in Britain and Saudi Arabia apart from the domestic market.

Ceat is looking forward to doubling the capacity of its radial unit at Halol, in Panchmahal district of Gujarat.

The company will make an additional investment of Rs 630 crore to increase the capacity of the plant from its existing 130 tonne per day to 300 tonne per day. The greenfield facility in Halol, where it has already invested Rs 620 crore, will start operations by October 2014.

The board of directors of the company will soon approve the expansion project and will also finalise ways to fund the expansion plans. The raised funds will also be utilised in research and development (R&D) activities.

Further, plans are afoot to increase the capacity three-fold to 450 tonne per day in the next three to four years, entailing a cost of Rs 1,500 crore, which includes the investment in Phase-II of expansion. The plant produces four million tpa tyres in Phase I; a considerable portion of which will be radials for heavy truck, bus, light truck and passenger cars. This will be ramped up to 12 million tpa tyres over the years.

Ceat is also expanding its Nashik unit in Maharashtra by about 35 tonne per day.