By IANS,
New Delhi : Commerce Minister Anand Sharma Friday said the first phase of the over $100 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) will be completed by 2018.
The DMIC, running through six states — Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra — is being developed in collaboration with the Japanese government as a global manufacturing and trading hub.
“We expect industrial output to triple and exports to grow four times on its completion,” he said.
Under the first phase of the corridor project, seven cities, each entailing an investment of around $9-10 billion (Rs.40,000-Rs.45,000 crore), will be developed in these states.
“These will have significant impact on employment generation, industrial production and exports,” said Sharma on the sidelines of a seminar on “India-Japan Business Potential: Exploring New Opportunities”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Four memoranda of understanding (MOUs) were signed Friday by Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) and state governments of Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra with Japanese companies Hitachi, Mitsubishi Corp, Toshiba, JGC and Tokyo Electric Power Company.
As per the agreements, the Japanese consultants will launch feasibility studies to set up the first set of “smart communities” in Manesar-Bawal region of Haryana, Dahej and Changodar in Gujarat and Shendra industrial region in Maharashtra.
Defining the concept, DMICDC chief executive Amitabh Kant said: “A smart community means a city in which citizens, business and government live, work and interact in a sustainable manner through delivery of integrated, low carbon products and services. The industrial corridor provides India a unique opportunity to adopt futuristic smart city concept of minimal pollution, maximum recycling and reuse of finite resources and optimisation of energy supplies.”
The eco cities in India will follow the Japanese model of using all industrial wastes as raw materials for other industries to create a zero emission environment and an independent recycling-based society.
The feasibility studies will be financed by Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Based on the report, the Japanese consortiums will start demonstration projects by this year-end.
Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Nasayuki Naoshima was present on the occasion.