The government is hoping to float tenders for the development of Dholera and Shendre-Bidkin into smart cities by March 2015, a senior government official said on Thursday. The two areas form a part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC).
Shatrughna Singh, additional secretary, department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), said that the five industrial corridors planned in India will have several nodes consisting of industrial clusters and smart cities.
“Each of these nodes will require investments of R50,000-R75,000 crore,” Singh said on sidelines of FICCI’s Real Estate Summit 2014 in Mumbai.
Giving DMIC’s example, he said it has about 25 nodes, of which seven have been taken up in the first phase of development. “Master plan for five of these seven nodes has already been completed. On two of these five nodes, which is Dholera and Shendre-Bidkin trunk infrastructure will roll out by end of fiscal year 2014-2015,” Singh said.
The development of these nodes will be undertaken through a special purpose vehicle, which will have participation from state and central government, as well as private companies and funds. The SPV will be headed by a state government official. According to Singh, state’s equity participation will be in the form of land, while the central government will put in equal amount of money into the projects. Also, private sector and funding institutions could also be asked to invest in the projects.
He added that 35%-40% of the project cost will be for creating of trunk infrastructure which has to come from government funding while the remaining around 60-65% of the cost will be structured on PPP.
Meanwhile, to oversee the development of these industrial corridors, Singh said the Centre was in the process of forming a national corridor development authority by March 2015. “This authority will be responsible for the planning process of the industrial corridors as well as sourcing of funds,” he said.
Apart from DMIC, the other four industrial corridors include Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor, Bangalore Mumbai Economic Corridor, Chennai Bangalore Industrial Corridor and Vishakhapatnam Chennai Industrial Corridor, which are expected to give a major push to the manufacturing sector in India.
