Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged the state governments to expedite land acquisition for rapid industrial growth in the country. Sitharaman also asked Niti Aayog to map different projects such as industrial corridors, freight corridors, defence corridors, and PLI (Production Linked Incentive)-based industry parks, among others, to understand the need for bringing them under PM GatiShakti – which aims at synergy in infrastructure development in the country.
The directions came during the first meeting of the Apex Monitoring Authority constituted to review the progress under the National Industrial Corridor Development programme. Under this, futuristic industrial cities that will compete with the global manufacturing and investment destinations, are planned to be developed. Total 32 projects under four phases are to be developed in eleven corridors.
The corridors are Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor, Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor, Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor, and Bengaluru-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (BMIC), among others.
“What started with about three-four states with few nodes today has gone to cover eighteen states and the ecosystem for industrial development has taken a different colour and speed as we are seeing a far more liberalized environment. This is a rapid scaling up and as a result, there should be a greater cumulative benefit, we should be able to derive,” she says during the meeting, while urging the state governments to expedite the acquisition of land.
Emphasising the need to ensure optimal utilsation of resources, the FM says that PM’s GatiShakti National Master Plan was expected to bring about greater coherence in all investments in infrastructure projects, a release from the ministry of finance on the review meeting says.
“She asked the NITI Aayog to map all the different projects such as Industrial Corridors, Freight Corridors, Defence Corridors, NIMZ (National Industrial Manufacturing Zones) PLI-based industry parks, PM-Mitra parks, Medical & Pharma Parks and Logistic Parks to understand the need for bringing them under PM GatiShakti,” the ministry says.
“The finance minister also asked the shipping ministry to map out all the seaports connected to various industrial corridors to see whether there are meaningful linkages,” the release adds.
The next meeting of the monitoring committee will be held in November.
The apex monitoring authority comprises of Finance Minister as Chairperson, Minister of commerce & industry, railways, road transport and highways, shipping, and vice-chairman, NITI Aayog, and chief minister of states concerned.
“Chief Ministers from six states, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, M.P. Maharashtra and Uttarkhand and ministers from seven states Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan besides senior officials from all the states attended the meeting,” the ministry says.
