The issue of a corridor joining the political and financial capitals of India (New Delhi, Mumbai) is under discussion for several years, but with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's India visit, for the first time it appears to be getting ready to take shape on the ground. Both countries have agreed to create an Rs.100 billion fund with equal partnership that would be used to prepare concrete details of this corridor.
Backbone of Corridor
The backbone of this corridor would be a rail line fully dedicated to freight trains between Delhi and Mumbai. But the real aspect would be the proposed industrial infrastructure along this track that could be considered as the country's biggest infrastructure project with an estimated cost of $90 billion.
This would include six industrial areas of 200 sq km each, three new seaports, and six airports. On one end of the corridor would be the Noida-Dadri area of Uttar Pradesh apart from Delhi, while on the other end would be Igatpuri-Nasik-Sinnar region of Maharashtra. In between, there would be Manesar-Bawal of Haryana, Khushkheda-Bhiwadi-Nimrana of Rajasthan, Pitampur-Dhar-Mhow of Madhya Pradesh, and Bharuch-Dahej of Gujarat.
Ten cities of the country with a population of more than one million would directly benefit from this industrial corridor, and there would be the possibility of setting up new industrial cities along the corridor. If the dream of bringing this project on the ground by 2012 is fulfilled, it could be extended in the second phase from Bengaluru to Chennai. This project could play a decisive role in giving a boost to the position where India is standing at the moment in the matter of economic development.
Good Development
There has been good development here of roads, airlines, automobile, telecom, media, and real estate in the past one decade, but in comparison, no new ground has been broken in the manufacturing sector. It is good that people start living in good houses, buy good items, talk a lot on phones, and drive their cars on smooth roads, but they would be able to do these things for a long time only when at least 10 times more people get new opportunities of small trades and employment.
If this does not take place for some reason, social structure gets inverted and people start behaving like a mob of parasites, forgetting about production.
Benefit for Western India
With implementation of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, we can hope to begin the treatment of this disease in time. Similarly, in the manner in which this project would benefit western India, concrete initiative should be taken on a Ludhiana-Kolkata corridor breathing new life in eastern India.
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