NEW DELHI: The $100-billion Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor, one of India’s most ambitious infrastructure projects, will kick off land allotments next month and those eyeing plots are said to include big global investors like Ikea, Kia Motors and China Railway Construction Corp.
The allocations will mark a significant step forward in a project that was approved by cabinet in 2011. Other potential investors include German wind turbine manufacturer Senvion, Korean Land & Housing Corp. and Chinese real estate company Country Garden, said a person with knowledge of the matter. The land will be fully developed with world-class infrastructure, a big attraction for investors ready to pay a premium for clean titles in four brand new industrial cities being developed as part of the project.
The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corp. (DMICDC) has received several queries about available land with many asking for assurances of litigation-free land in the past few weeks, said the person cited above. The companies couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
Many of those seeking land are said to have informally visited sites to inspect infrastructure and availability.
The project will be implemented in three phases, with the first expected to be completed by 2025 and the second by 2032. Work on trunk infrastructure is on in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh and is expected to be completed by 2019.
The corporation has finalised its land use plan and is now in the process of finalising its land policy after which it will start allocations. The policy will determine whether land will be allotted through auction or on a first-come-firstserved basis.
DMIDC is looking for big anchor investors, especially in the manufacturing sector, that will infuse large amounts of capital and in turn attract others, turning into employment-generation hubs.
“We want to promote industrial townships,” said Alkesh Sharma, CEO and managing director, DMICDC. “When industry will come the area around it will also develop consequentially.”
Kia Motors is said to have enquired about acquiring a large parcel of land, it is learnt, but this could not be independently verified.
The government will extend concessions to anchor investor in terms of price or tax benefits. The four industrial cities under the project are Dholera Special Investment Region (Gujarat), Shendra Bidkin Industrial Park & Dighi Port Industrial Area (Maharashtra), Integrated Industrial Township (Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh) and Vikram Udyogpuri (Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh).
“These places have to be developed as smart manufacturing destinations,” Sharma said. “Whatever we do, we have to begin with inviting companies who will set up manufacturing units.”
ET View
Land needed for investment hubs
Big-ticket investments are welcome. DMICDC is billed as the world’s largest infrastructure project, with investments worth $100 billion in the pipeline. As many as eight modern industrial clusters are planned, with a dozen early-bird projects underway, complete with path-breaking connectivity and attendant investment. We do need land banks for the investment clusters, with land-owners made active stakeholders in the entire process of development. DMICDC should also put more information in the public domain (and its website), to proactively boost investor confidence in the ultra-mega multi-cluster investment project.
Source: ET Reality
