Absence of big ticket projects in the Manufacturing and Electrical sectors, the first month of 2011 opened with 683 startups worth Rs 14,528 crore. The preceding month (December 2010) had seen 932 new projects worth Rs 42,396 crore being announced. In fact, the Rs 14,528-crore aggregate investments accrued in the month of January 2011 were the lowest fresh investments seen in a month in the last two years. Despite a sharp fall in total outlay, the Manufacturing sector with Rs 8,134 crore of fresh investment accounted for 56 per cent of the total investment mooted in January. Nearly half of the investment proposed in this sector came from two projects announced in the Cement and Steel sectors.

The Aditya Birla group company, UltraTech Cement, proposes to set up a three million tpa cement unit in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore.

One of the largest private sector steel producer, JSW Steel, intends to set up a Rs 4,025-crore cold rolling mill with a capacity of 2.3 million tpa at Vijayanagar in Bellary district of Karnataka.

The month-on-month fall was steep in the Electricity sector. As against 59 startups worth Rs 22,090 crore announced in December 2010, only 28 new projects at an investment of Rs 222 crore were announced in the first month of this year. The uncertainty prevailing over the clearance of 203 coal mining sites might be one of the reasons for the slowdown on project announcements in this sector. Though three large projects were announced in this sector, their cost has not yet been finalised. The projects were

The Services and Utilities Sector witnessed 523 startups with an aggregate investment of Rs 5,998 crore.

The number of startups proposed in this sector fell by about 17 per cent when compared with the December 2010 figures. Of the 189 new roadways projects announced in January 2011, 60 were by the state government of Jharkhand. These projects intend to upgrade the existing roadways with outlays ranging between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 5 crore.

Of the 25 new water supply schemes announced by various government agencies, the Rs 323.44-crore Dhanbad water supply scheme taken up by the Jharkhand Government and the Rs 204-crore Basni water supply scheme project of the Rajasthan Government were noteworthy.

In the Hotels sector, IHHR Hospitality announced three five-star hotel projects at Jaipur in Rajasthan, and at Nagpur and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. All the three hotels will have an inventory of 200 rooms each. Sabari Inn is developing three four-star hotels - one each in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. The National Rural Health Mission, Assam, has firmed up plans to set up 13 hospital projects which include 10 hospitals and three community health centres.