By IANS,
Ranchi : The killing of Reliance Power’s general manager by Maoists in Jharkhand has escalated fears among local businessmen that the incident might send a wrong signal to investors and adversely dry up funds for the state.
“The killing seems to be pre-planned to demotivate the investors. It could have an impact on investors, particularly on medium-scale ones,” Sharad Poddar, vice president of the Jharkhand Small Industries Association, told IANS.
The Jharkhand government had a bad stint with corporates during the first regime of Chief Minister Arjun Munda.
Munda had signed over 70 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in steel, power and other sectors. However, major steel players like Arcelor Mittal, Tata Steel and others could not get land to set up their plants.
Officials of many companies were beaten up by people, who were fearing displacement from their areas. Not a single power plant signed by the government could come up.
A release of Jharkhand government Thursday said: “Karl-Heinz Schalaiss, senior manager (International Relations) of Daimler AG exhibited interest in automotive industry – especially Mercedes Benz. They are exploring to set up a plant in India. They showed interest in Jharkhand as a potential investment destination.”
“Lennat Poll, managing director of Lepo GmbH (company) is interested to invest in real estate business. They were also interested to explore opportunity to use Fly Ash which comes out of thermal power plants,” it added.
The timing of the killing of the Reliance Power official could not have been worse as Munda is in Germany to hunt for fresh investments in the state.
Manoj Ojha, general manager of Reliance Power, was shot dead and the company’s vice president H. Bhuj was injured in firing by Maoists in Chatra district on Wednesday.
Last month, the rebels had abducted and killed two petty contractors of Abhijit group from Latehar district. The Maoists have also been regularly raiding the mining companies and torching the vehicles involved in transportation work.