Nagpur: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday told industrialists from Mumbai at a business fireside chat in Nagpur that not investing in Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar now, would be a business decision they would regret a decade later.“I am giving it to you in writing, the next big thing is Sambhajinagar or Nagpur. If you are not investing here, you are missing big. Those who don’t invest here will regret it 10 years later,” said Fadnavis.Focusing on Nagpur, he said the huge business demand exhausted two extensions of MIDC Butibori zone. “There is not a single plot left. The first additional Butibori is over, the second is over, and now we are working on the third. It seems we will have to take neighbouring Wardha district too, and we will name it Butibori since it is an extension anyway,” he said.A 2,000-acre central business district modelled around GIFT City was being planned along the Samruddhi Expressway, he said. “The infrastructure will be among the most modern in the country, with utilities going through underground tunnels as in GIFT City. We have completed 50% land acquisition and will finish the rest in three months, after which infrastructure construction begins,” Fadnavis said.On Gadchiroli, he said Rs 4 lakh crore in investments had come to the district, with a Belgium company signing an MoU for green steel production there. “We will take gas to Gadchiroli through the pipeline we laid along the Samruddhi highway, produce green steel and automobile-grade steel which we currently import in large quantities,” he said.The expressway would also carry a dedicated rail freight corridor linking Vadhvan and JNPT ports through Nashik, Jalna and Wardha dry ports to Gadchiroli, he said. “Once we do this, logistics costs for entire Maharashtra can come below 7%. There will be no difference between Mumbai and Nagpur, or Mumbai and Gadchiroli, because the latter is now becoming India’s new steel city,” Fadnavis said.On solar manufacturing, Fadnavis said the investment at Avada solar module factory, where the fireside chat event was hosted, had drawn wider interest. “Now is the time to invest and make Nagpur the country’s largest solar module ecosystem,” he said.Talking about Avada factory, Fadnavis said “When I came here for the bhoomipujan, I did not imagine it would turn out to be a huge success. It is one of the best in India,” he said.
