By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal : The Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow belt of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh will also be part of the $ 90 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project is courtesy Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. The project is being developed in collaboration with Japan.
The Union Cabinet which accorded its approval to the project on Thursday will now have six investment regions with the inclusion of the Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow belt of Madhya Pradesh. Construction work of the project is expected to start in 2008-09, to be completed by 2012.
The turn around in the fortune of Madhya Pradesh, which was not included in the project, came when Kamal Nath pulled the strings and threw his weight to see that the state is included in DMIC. He owes his growth in the corridors of power from the Chhindwara parliamentary seat in the state from where he has been contesting elections ever since Sanjay Gandhi pitch-forked him into politics.
Initially, Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Manesar-Bawal in Haryana, Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemra in Rajasthan, Bharuch-Dahej in Gujarat and Igatpuri-Nashik-Sinnar in Maharashtra were proposed as the investment regions.
In July when the contours of the project were unveiled DMIC was to encompass five states – Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra – which were to be the key participants in the project.
However, Kamal Nath put his foot down and saw to it that Madhya Pradesh was included in the project. His efforts bore fruit and Madhya Pradesh has become the sixth member of this prestigious project. DMIC now covers three states ruled by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two ruled by the Congress that leads the coalition government in New Delhi and one ruled by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Similarly, the tally of short-listed industrial regions to be developed under the project has also been expanded to six with the inclusion of Neemach region in Madhya Pradesh. The others are: Meerut-Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh), Faridabad-Palwal (Haryana), Jaipur-Dausa (Rajasthan), Vadodara-Ankleshwar (Gujarat) and Alewadi-Dighi (Maharashtra).
As many as 250 projects are likely to come up along the proposed 1,483-km Dedicated Railway Freight Corridor in sectors such as roads, ports, industrial parks and special economic zones (SEZs). The bulk of the investment is to come from the private sector. The Japanese financial services group Orix, which has already launched a $100 million project development fund in India together with ILFS in 2006, says the DMIC project could see investments in many sectors including ports, real estate development, SEZs, road construction, technology and manpower training.
According to reports, Mitsui Corporation, which is investing in a free trade warehousing zone in Noida, is keen to build a major logistics centre around the DMIC, especially for cold chain and port facilities.