Patna, March 16: Investment has started to trickle into Bihar.

The mega projects are still elusive but medium-level investors are showing more interest in the state.

The trickle has been without much fanfare: the rituals have taken place without the attendance of star guests like the chief minister or any of his cabinet members.

“Why should one invest Rs 1,000-Rs 2,000 crore in Bihar? The state’s strength is agro-processing and tourism. Several proposals with investment of about Rs 200 to Rs 250 crore are obviously going to come,” principal secretary of industries, C.K. Mishra, told The Telegraph.

According to the latest figures, Rs 1,761.90 crore has been invested.

A major chunk of the investment has been in the sugar industry. Around Rs 500 crore has been set aside for new sugar mills while another Rs 404 crore has been invested for the expansion of existing sugar mills.

Over Rs 55 crore has been invested in setting up ethanol plants in the sugar mills.

Proposals worth Rs 1,99,912 crore have been submitted to the state investment promotion board, which had been set up in 2006. The government claims 446 projects have been cleared, of which 53 industrial units are functional.

So far investments have been made for the production of edible oil, biscuit, maize, beverage apart from sugar mills. Altogether there are 83 projects in the pipeline, which will bring an investment of Rs 756 crore. The investment in power projects has been dismal.

“Even if an investment of Rs 40-55 crore comes to Bihar it is a good start. Private investment is going to come in only three sectors — power, sugar and agro-business,” said former chief of Bihar Chamber of Commerce P.K. Agarwal, who stressed that the government needs to change its rules to speed up the investment process.

However, not all industrialists appear satisfied with the progress and feel that the investment so far has been far from encouraging.

“The investments made by companies such as Britannia and Parle are small and aimed to cater to the demands of the local market. These companies have their units in many states,” said president of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Bihar chapter, Satyajit Singh. He added that the state government should play a pro-active role if it is serious about bringing private investment to the state.

Singh said the local players have made major investments in Bihar. “Most of them are yet to get the incentives promised by the government as the files keep shuttling from one desk to another. I had set up a butter processing unit four years ago and I have not received the promised incentives yet,” Singh said, pointing out that major investments in Bihar have come in the construction sector — to the tune of Rs 28,000 crore in the past five years.

“But this is a sector in which the government has nothing to do. Still there are many investors in the state who prefer to invest outside rather than in Bihar,” he added.