Mumbai: Industries Minister Uday Samant on Wednesday said that the state govt has no information that over 36,000 companies have shut down in Maharashtra in the last five years.Samant said that though the data has come from the Centre, the figure will have to be investigated. “I’m not saying that the information given by the Centre is wrong. We will investigate it. We need one day for this verification. If this figure is true, then we will find out how and why this has happened,” he said.On Wednesday, TOI had reported that in its reply to a query raised by Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Rajabhau Waje in Lok Sabha, the ministry of corporate affairs said that 36,211 private companies were either liquidated, dissolved or struck off in Maharashtra in the last five years. Of these the highest were in business services (14,613); followed by manufacturing, mining and quarrying (6,582); by trading (4,196); and community, personal and social services (3,361). The highest number of companies were shut down in Mumbai at 12,009, followed by Pune at 6,433 and Thane at 4,704.Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray and NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar slammed the state govt for the closures.Industry experts said the massive wave of company shutdowns in Maharashtra stems from a mix of macroeconomic stress, escalating operational costs, geopolitical shocks, and aggressive regulatory crackdowns by state authorities.“While Maharashtra continues to register the highest number of new businesses in India, it also faces a sharp surge in corporate mortality due to specific structural vulnerabilities. Over two lakh private companies shut down across India over five years, with Maharashtra leading closures at over 36,211 companies. While the state faces high corporate mortality and a purge of defunct companies, it still holds the largest sub-national economy in the country,” an industry expert said. “The high rate of company closures and the migration of industries out of key hubs are widely seen as localised operational failures of both the MIDC and the broader state industries department, combined with macro factors.”
