As the Make In India Week gathered momentum, investors, business persons and others listened as government officials laid threadbare the plans for India’s upcoming smart cities and industrial corridors. At a seminar on ‘Industrial Corridors: Drivers for India’s Economic Growth’, jointly organised by FICCI and DMICDC, Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, discussed the country’s plans for growth and the challenges facing it.

Delivering the keynote address, Kant said, “The key challenge for India is to grow at rates of 9-10 per cent per annum to be able to lift a vast segment of the population above the poverty line.” He further added that presently the country is growing at 7.4 per cent. But we must have the ambition to grow at higher rates despite the economic slowdown across the world.

Explaining his viewpoint, he elaborated, “Every single country in the world has used a global crisis to grow and expand. Global crises come and go. But India must continue.” He cited the example of Japan that grew and expanded after World War II.

Kant went on to suggest that the key to grow at 9-10 per cent per annum will be its ability to create top class infrastructure of size, scale and speed. The challenge is the enormous demand in India. “The key is our ability to structure projects and create SPVs (special purpose vehicles/entities).” Describing the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), he said it is benchmarked with the world’s best, with top class planning and detailed engineering. It is structured such that planned infrastructure goes below the city. The corridor comprises 1500 odd km.

Explaining the merits of the DMIC, he said, “Today, it takes 14 days for goods to reach the ports in west India from the north. The corridor will be ready in 2018, and goods will reach the ports in 14 hours.”

He added that similar corridors linking Amritsar-Kolkata, Chennai-Bengaluru, Chennai-Vizag and Mumbai-Bengaluru will sharply lower logistical costs. All these smart cities of the future will be replete with planned engineering, trunk infrastructure, and recycling of water and waste. They will function with about 12 layers of infrastructure below the ground.

“For the first time in the world, geography and ICT planning will be converged and integrated.”

Welcoming the gathering, Dr. A. Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI said that FICCI was happy to collaborate with DMIC. It is up to all supporters to ensure that it happens. The key factors, he said, are “Land, labour and capital. Are we able to access these easily in the Indian environment?” He added that DMIC and the other industrial corridors will provide an enabling environment for business and economic growth. “This is an excellent idea for India, and we are extremely happy as FICCI to be associated.”

Anthony J C DeSa, Chief Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh, highlighted the contribution of his state to these projects of the future. “The challenge is to exploit the natural tendency of industries to grow along corridors and mould them as engines of growth.” They should not be considered as ribbons of development, but as “a series of beads in a chain.” Madhya Pradesh will be developing three major industrial corridors and five smart cities.

The major one is the Bhopal-Indore corridor, which is included within the DMIC. The two cities are akin to Mumbai and Pune and well connected by expressway. Another corridor will be Jabalpur-Singrauli. “Madhya Pradesh has all infrastructures in place. We have 16000 MW of installed electricity; our peak requirement is 10000 MW, so there is a surplus.” He added that the state was planning to develop seven smart cities and 34 ‘amrit’ cities with an investment of Rs 75000 crore over the next five years. “We have ideas about how to get it, but the vast majority will be through PPP investment.”

Alkesh Kumar Sharma, CEO and MD, Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Limited (DMICDC), made a theme presentation on ‘Role of Industrial Corridors in Building a New India’. He said that while planners earlier criticised urbanisation as a western phenomenon, they ultimately realised that cities are the engines of growth. “India will double its urbanisation in the next two decades, with 700 million people moving into cities. Cities will create 75 per cent of India’s growth. That is the growth story India has to look at.”

He disclosed that as India celebrates its 70th Independence Day in August 2016, other historic events will take place side by side. “Greenfield industrial cities will be ready to welcome their first investors.” Describing the various industrial corridors across the country, he said that they have been planned by “Some of the best master consultants in the world.”

They have been layered with ICT planning and are being developed in a sustainable manner, with “Minimal commuting, minimal land use, recycling and reuse of water, IT based with excellent connectivity. The vast experience gained in the development of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor will help in saving time and resources in planning the other corridors in the country, he added.

The inaugural session was followed by a panel discussion where eminent panellists discussed issues surrounding development of industrial corridors and smart cities.