Promises are meant to be broken?

Promises are meant to be broken. Thus we cannot help but wonder whether all these “pledges” which came in during the Make in India week held in Mumbai will actually get translated into reality.

The number made one balk - $222 billion or Rs.15.2 trillion in investment pledges have come in with thin attendance by foreign firms. Though the ministry is certain that 80-85% of these pledges will get translated into reality, research shows otherwise.

Reuters has reported that research commissioned by the free-market Friedrich Naumann and Cato institutes has found the rate of conversion of such pledges into real investments in India has typically been far lower - with no state exceeding 20%.

At the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, the Gujarat government claims to have inked 21,000 MoUs worth Rs 25 lakh crore. But Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) stated that only 9.14% of actual investments were made in Gujarat as against MoUs signed during Vibrant Gujarat Summits from 2003 to 2011.

So are these summits mere PR events?