Jaipur, Nov. 19: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley today inaugurated the Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit, one of several such industry meets that state governments across the country have been hosting in recent years to attract investments.

"Today, the states are competing among themselves to attract investments," Jaitley said in his inaugural address, praising the trend.

As it happens in all investment summits, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje also quoted a figure - investment proposals worth over Rs 3.3 lakh crore in the past year or so - to claim how she has been successful in bringing Rajasthan back on the radar of investors.

The Gujarat government had put the figure at Rs 25 lakh crore, Karnataka around Rs 6 lakh crore and Madhya Pradesh around Rs 7 lakh crore.

"Often, these claims are exaggerated as there is a race among states to show that they are attracting more investments than others," said an industrialist.

But he added: "Investment summits do create an impact and help the state reach out to potential investors if the state government can properly market the event."

As the countdown starts to the Bengal government's next investment summit, scheduled in January 2016, The Telegraph lists some of the factors that helped Rajasthan showcase itself and what Bengal can try to replicate:

Names do matter: Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not make it to Jaipur, four Union ministers other than Jaitley - Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar, Suresh Prabhu and Rajiv Pratap Rudy - showed up.

The industrialists who attended included Cyrus Mistry, chairman, Tata Sons; Anil Ambani of the Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Group; Kumar Mangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla Group; Gautam Adani of the Adani Group; Pawan Kant Munjal of the Hero Group; Anil Agarwal of the Vedanta Group; and Uday Kotak of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Those on the dais also included K. Shanmugam, the home minister of Singapore, whom Mamata Banerjee had met during her visit last August. Shanmugam said Singapore was willing to engage more with Rajasthan. The former foreign minister, who came along with a delegation, announced that Singapore Airlines would have direct flight connectivity with Jaipur.

"I know that you look at everything extremely carefully... I am happy that a relationship of trust has been built with Singapore," said Raje, stealing a glance at the visiting minister.

Some of the other people in attendance at Jaipur included Takeshi Yagi, the ambassador of Japan to India, who announced that a 100-member delegation from his country was in Jaipur. The Italian ambassador in India and a senior minister from South Australia were also on the dais.

The Bengal government has also been trying to get industry bigwigs to attend the investment summits in the state. But the list has always been heavily loaded with businessmen from the state and the heavyweights of India Inc have till now not shown up in Calcutta.

Policies hold key: The Raje government has managed to create a conducive environment for business by doing away with archaic laws and acts. This has been one of the reasons Rajasthan - once the R of the BIMARU states in India - is being considered as an investment destination today.

Raje stressed that her government had repealed 248 acts since she returned to power in 2013. Sources in the government said that amendments made to the Industrial Disputes Act, the Factories Act, the Contract Labour Act and the Apprentices Act had sent strong signals to industry about the state government's intention to create an enabling environment for business in Rajasthan.

In Bengal, archaic provisions like the Urban Land Ceiling Act still exist and the government has a stated policy against giving the special economic zone status to projects.

The Rajasthan government has created dedicated country zones in the state -Neemrana, around 151km from Jaipur, for Japanese companies, and Ghilot, 158km from the state capital, for Korean companies.

Although land in most parts of Rajasthan is arid unlike in Bengal where it is fertile, the western state's success in earmarking over 80,000 acres for industry across 329 industrial parks has caught the eye of industry.

In comparison, out of 22 industrial parks in Bengal, around 3,000 acres are available in nine of them. Besides, five parks have some readily available modules where industrial units can move in anytime. Availability of land in Bengal, characterised by small plot sizes, is not the sole problem in the state. The chief minister never misses out a chance to iterate her hands-off land policy.

"We will not acquire land forcibly, but we have land," Mamata had said at the inauguration of the last edition of the investment summit in Calcutta.

But vital details of the 10,000 acres of land available in the government's land bank and the location of the land parcels have remained hazy in Bengal.

Numbers count: Some of the top names of India Inc today took care to roll out their companies' future investment plans in Rajasthan, besides heaping praise on the Raje-led government for creating a conducive business environment.

Such praise about the Mamata regime also resonates through the auditoria during industry meets in Bengal. But what matters the most is the quantum of investment industrialists commit in a state.

In Jaipur, Ambani talked about future investments of Rs 60,000 crore, followed by Adani promising to pump in Rs 10,000 crore in the next four years and Birla pledging Rs 11,000 crore soon. Munjal of the Hero Group said the company would set up a research and development centre while Kotak said the loan disbursed in Rajasthan would be doubled from Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore soon.

The Bengal government - led by finance and industries minister Amit Mitra - had also announced impressive numbers after the last edition of the investment summit by claiming that proposals worth Rs 2.43 lakh crore were received during the two-day show in January. But some of the proposals had been around for years and had dusted for the summit. Besides, a significant chunk of the plans was from the public sector.

Venue: The Rajasthan government's show is being held at the sprawling Jaipur Exhibition and Convention Centre, spread over 42 acres in Sitapura in the state capital. With over 250,000sqft available for meetings and exhibitions, the venue can be compared with Gandhi Nagar's Mahatma Mandir, the site for Vibrant Gujarat.

The first industry summit in Bengal was held at the permanent fair ground at Milan Mela, off EM Bypass. The next edition was held in a temporary structure at Haldia, while the last one was also organised in temporary structures in Calcutta.

Although the venue was done up properly last time, several industrialists have been stressing on the need for a bigger and better convention centre in Calcutta.

Similarities

Bengal has SRK, Rajasthan Irrfan: If King Khan is the brand ambassador of Bengal, Irrfan wears that hat for Rajasthan. Irrfan made a short appearance at the inaugural programme, entering the venue on a Hero motorbike.

Music blends with business: Mamata has made some industrialists sing. Raje presented Bhanwari Devi, Rajasthani folk singer, at the inaugural programme.

Predecessor did it: Mamata never tires of mentioning how the 34 years of Left rule ruined Bengal. At the Rajasthan summit, the "mismanagement" of the Congress regime, between 2003 and 2008, was under assault.

And the credit goes to...: If Mamata is the source of inspiration in Bengal and is mentioned in all speeches, in Rajasthan, the "dynamic and visionary leadership" of Raje finds a reference in all speeches.