New Delhi, Jan 3 (IANS) In clear signs of a pick-up in investment intentions in the country, the momentum strengthened in the first nine months of FY26, with Rs 26.62 lakh crore worth of new investment announcements, significantly higher than Rs 23.88 lakh crore in the same period last year, according to a new report.

This is on the back of a very positive policy package of the government which has focussed on capex, lowering of income tax rates and GST 2.0.

Infrastructure-led sectors dominated investment intentions, with the top five sectors accounting for nearly 80 per cent of total announcements. Electricity (22.6 per cent), led by renewables, emerged as the largest contributor, according to the Bank of Baroda report.

Chemicals (21.8 per cent) and Metals (17.3 per cent) followed, highlighting strong capital goods and industrial investment.

According to the report, consumer-oriented sectors remained marginal, contributing less than 3 per cent of total investment intentions, indicating that the current capex cycle is still largely supply-side driven.

Investment activity was highly concentrated in Andhra Pradesh (25.3 per cent), followed by Odisha (13.1 per cent), Maharashtra (12.8 per cent), Telangana (9.5 per cent), and Gujarat (7.1 per cent). These five states together accounted for around 68 per cent of total proposed investments.

Other notable states seeing meaningful investment interest included Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, suggesting gradual geographic broadening.

The report said that the current investment uptrend is supported by government capex push, tax reforms, GST rationalisation, and easing interest rates, which have helped offset global trade headwinds.

Going ahead, as consumption improves and capacity utilisation rises, investment is expected to become more broad-based, both across sectors and states, the report noted.

Further, there has been a tendency for interest rates to also come down which were to spur investment activity. Hence the investment environment does appear to be positive in the present financial year.

—IANS

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