Inaugurating the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit on December 8, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the state a “new hub for investment”, crediting the “double engine” government’s push on tourism, connectivity and investment.

There were grand numbers that followed: 1,779 MoUs worth Rs 3.56 lakh crore. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had chased them with roadshows in London and Dubai, and in Bengaluru, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai – a courtship that cost taxpayers roughly Rs 100 crore, according to an RTI response seen by Newslaundry.

But MoUs are only promises, so Newslaundry asked what had actually materialised. The Directorate of Industries initially declined to share the full list of MoU signatories, arguing that other states might poach them. It did, however, share a list of “grounded” projects: around 3,300 entities accounting for Rs 1 lakh crore. “Grounding,” in the government’s telling, means the money has begun to flow – and it is the same Rs 1 lakh crore the Dhami government held up in 2025 as proof the summit was delivering.

Though here is a catch. A global investors’ summit conjures images of multinationals and marquee conglomerates queuing up to write cheques. When we set out to trace who Uttarakhand’s “investors” actually were, we found state-owned power companies that account for more than a third of the headline figure. There were flour mills, fertiliser shops and small clinics; some of them had no idea they had been counted.

This Newslaundry report is not an audit of all 3,300-odd entries on the grounding list or the full Rs 1 lakh crore figure. What it does show is that in some instances, the label “grounded investment” had been stretched to cover businesses that never knew they were listed, projects that never broke ground, and government spending recast as private capital.

Inclusion on the list does not mean no actual spending took place – PSU-linked projects, for instance, do represent real government expenditure, even if not the kind a government would usually count as investment.

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