₹14.5 Lakh Crore on Paper: How Indian States Inflate Davos Investment Claims
Maharashtra’s announcement of ₹14.5 lakh crore worth of Memorandums of Understanding at the World Economic Forum in Davos was celebrated with predictable chest-thumping. Politicians posed, headlines screamed “historic investment”, and job numbers were casually thrown around as if cheques had already been signed and factories were ready to break ground. But strip away the Davos optics, and what remains is a familiar story of inflated numbers, blurred definitions, and political theatre masquerading as economic achievement.
Let us be clear at the outset. An MoU is not investment. It is intent. It carries no binding obligation, no guaranteed timeline, and no assured capital inflow. Yet across Indian states, MoUs are routinely sold to the public as money already secured. Maharashtra’s latest Davos announcement fits neatly into this pattern. Of the ₹14.5 lakh crore touted, roughly one-third can be clearly traced to Indian or India-based companies, and even that portion is spread across long-term, phased projects that may or may not materialise in full.
The most misleading aspect is how domestic investments are rebranded as global triumphs. Indian real estate developers, infrastructure firms, and energy companies that were anyway expanding their footprint are flown to Davos, sign MoUs in front of international cameras, and are then counted as proof of foreign investor confidence. This allows state governments to present largely domestic capital as international endorsement. It is a sleight of hand that looks impressive on television but collapses under basic scrutiny.
The inflation does not stop there. Multi-decade projects are counted at their full lifetime value on day one. Joint ventures are reported at gross project value rather than actual equity inflow. Expansion plans announced earlier are repackaged as fresh commitments. In some cases, the same project quietly reappears across multiple investment summits, each time boosting the headline number. The result is a figure so bloated that it bears little resemblance to what will actually enter the state economy in the next five or even ten years.
Politicians know exactly why they do this. Big numbers create momentum. They drown out uncomfortable questions on execution, land acquisition, power availability, environmental clearances, and financing. They also help chief ministers compete with each other in a crude race of who can announce the largest figure. In Maharashtra’s case, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has aggressively projected the Davos MoUs as evidence of strong global confidence in the state. What he has not done is explain how much of this money will actually arrive, by when, and under what conditions.
This is where the deception becomes dangerous. When intent is sold as achievement, accountability collapses. There is no official, easily accessible data on how many MoUs signed at Davos five years ago have translated into operational factories or sustained employment. There is no public scorecard tracking which projects stalled, which were abandoned, and which quietly expired. Job numbers are announced without any explanation of timelines or quality of employment. Citizens are expected to clap for promises, not outcomes.
Defenders of this practice argue that Davos is about signalling, not execution. That argument misses the point. Signalling is legitimate. Misrepresentation is not. There is a difference between saying “we have signed MoUs worth ₹14.5 lakh crore” and saying “₹14.5 lakh crore of investment is coming”. Indian politicians routinely blur this line, and much of the media plays along without asking basic questions.
If MoUs truly reflected real investment, India would have been fully industrialised decades ago. Every state would be overflowing with manufacturing clusters, data centres, and logistics hubs announced with fanfare at past summits. The fact that this has not happened tells its own story.
Davos is not the villain here. Inflating numbers is. Until state governments are forced to publish MoU conversion rates, actual capital inflows, and project completion data, these grand announcements will remain what they largely are today: glossy press releases designed to impress voters, not honest accounts of economic progress.
