Kolkata: Gujarat minister for Industry, Information Technology and Tourism Suresh Chandra Mehta on July 5 said the state would emerge stronger in terms of attracting new investment after the "misconception" created by "wrong propaganda" on law and order in the state faded.

"If we analyse the riots in Gujarat to find whether it affected industries, it can be said with confidence the industrial scenario was not at all affected," Mehta said in an interaction with members of the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

He said that only a small part of the state was affected by the violence while the remainder was peaceful.

In support of his claim, he said, the state had over 2.75 lakh small-scale units and only 169 suffered damage, which was a very small number by any calculation.

"The total loss to the state in terms of violence was Rs 689 crore, including those in transport, banking and all other business activities. Claims of only Rs 169 crore were made with insurance companies," Mehta said.

He said it was unfortunate on the part of electronic and the print media to magnify a single incident of stabbing when the situation was heading towards normalisation.

Mehta said so far as business confidence was concerned none wanted to leave the state.

"On the contrary, British Gas signed a concession agreement worth Rs 5,000 crore in March soon after the violence broke out, which was followed by a Rs 500 crore expansion proposal from General Motors in the second week of March," he said.

PTI