Across India, when most of the real estate companies are either deferring their projects or shelving them, the state of Gujarat saw two mega real estate projects being announced. Popular Estate Management (formerly known as Pioneer Technoparks), a software development company, signed an MoU with the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) on 18 February 2009 for developing four integrated townships at a total cost of Rs.8,028 crore. These townships will come up in Andej, Godhavi, Garodia and Vadaj in Ahmedabad district.

Bakeri Engineers & Industries, a real estate company, also signed an MoU with AUDA for developing an integrated township at Makarba in Ahmedabad district with an investment of Rs.1,000 crore.

These five real estate projects helped Gujarat to corner around 26 per cent of the fresh investment announced in the month of February 2009. In all, the state attracted 39 projects with an aggregate investment of Rs.9,959 crore. Maharashtra, the second leading state in terms of total investment, however attracted the highest number of new projects. Of the 907 new projects announced in February 2009, 185 projects will be located in Maharashtra. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are the other two states, which attracted over 100 new projects.

Apart from Real Estate, other sectors which attracted sizeable investments in February were Cement, Aluminium, Thermal Power and Roadways.

After a gap of couple of months, the cement industry witnessed fresh capacity addition plans. Seven new cement projects with an investment of Rs.2,630 crore were announced in February 2009. These seven projects have a combined capacity to manufacture 8.5 tonne of cement per annum. Adhunik Corpn, SKS Ispat & Power and Calcom Cement are among the investors.

Maharashtra will have its first alumina complex, when Ashapura Minechem completes its proposed Rs.4,200 crore project in Ratnagiri. The company intends to set up a 0.5 million tonne alumina refinery and 0.15 million tonne aluminium smelter supported by 330 MW.

While only two companies - GMR Energy and Sophia Power Company - announced some developments in their proposed power projects, the February month saw announcements of another 25 new power projects with a total generation capacity of 7,870 MW. Of the 25 projects, the largest one was announced by the Kerala State Electricity Board. The SEB, intends to set up a 2,400 MW super thermal power unit at Cheemeni in Kasargod district of Kerala. Other prominent power projects announced in February are

The Service sector saw announcement of 391 infrastructure projects (Roadways, Shipping infrastructure and so on.), 76 water supply schemes and 21 hospitals.

In the Social Infrastructure sector, the month saw announcements of 76 water supply schemes and 21 new hospitals. Bulk of the water supply schemes were launched by the Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board, Tiruppur City Municipal Corpn, Mysore City Corpn and Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam. Of the 21 new hospitals, the most ambitious was Molecule7 Hospitals & Medical Institutions' 1,100- bed super specialty hospital (Phase I) at Kochi in Kerala.

The Mining sector saw announcement of 5 projects. Of this, the largest project was announced by the Madanpur South Coal Company to develop its captive coal mine of 5.40 million tonne by opencast method at Madanpur in Korba district of Chhattisgarh.