Mumbai, June 24 (IANS) Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant on Wednesday presented a Bill in the State Legislative Assembly to drastically expand the borrowing capacity of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), officials said.

The proposed amendment to the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act, 1961, lifts the corporation’s decades-old borrowing cap from a meagre Rs 75 crore to a massive Rs 6,000 crore.

The Bill is expected to come up for discussion on Thursday in the state Assembly.

The statutory ceiling on the maximum amount the MIDC could hold on loan at any single point had remained frozen for more than half a century.

Originally fixed in 1975, the Rs 75 crore limit has increasingly acted as a bureaucratic chokehold on the state’s industrial planning, severely lagging behind modern real estate values and global development scales.

According to the Bill’s statement of objects and reasons, the state’s rapid economic evolution necessitated an immediate overhaul of Section 22 of the 1961 Act, which empowers the corporation to raise funds via open markets, commercial banks, and financial institutions.

According to the Bill, modern industrial planning requires capital-intensive infrastructure that the outdated cap could no longer support.

Increasing industrial investment in the state requires additional financial resources to develop new industrial projects and infrastructure facilities by the Corporation.

Industries department sources said the skyrocketing costs of land acquisition has been as a primary driver for the amendment.

Under the stringent provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the MIDC is legally mandated to pay substantial compensation packages to local landowners and farmers.

The state’s aggressive pursuit of massive infrastructure corridors, next-generation Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and flagship connectivity ventures — such as the rapid land acquisition underway for the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Raje International Airport in Purandar — requires massive upfront financial liquidity.

With the passage of this Bill, the MIDC is set to unlock immediate access to critical fund structures, including a government-backed, Rs 6,000-crore loan facility via the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).

The department sources said thar this 80-fold expansion in leverage capacity will eliminate project delays, ensure swift and friction-free payouts to displaced landowners, and fortify Maharashtra’s positioning as India’s premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI).

–IANS

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