Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given the green signal to the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata industrial corridor and constituted an inter- Ministerial panel to prepare the feasibility report for setting it up.This is the second such corridor after the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, which is currently under development.
The inter-ministerial group (IMG), to be headed by the Department of industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) which would include the secretaries of economic affairs, roads, shipping and the Railway Board chairman. "This IMG will examine the feasibility of setting up the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata industrial corridor along with the structural and financing arrangements that would be required to operationalise it at the earliest.
The IMG will give its report within a month," said an official statement.The corridor will cover the states of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal. "This is one of the most densely populated regions in the world and houses about 40 per cent of India's population. This is a region which needs major push for industrialization and job-creation and this corridor will act as a catalyst forgrowth," the statement said.
The industrial corridor will use the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor as the backbone and this extends from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata. It will also leverage the Inland Waterway System being developed along National Waterway – 1 which extends from Allahabad to Haldia, the statement added. The statement said that in order to give a boost to industrial development in the densely populated Northern states, the Prime Minister has approved preparatory work on creating an Amritsar- Delhi-Kolkata Industrial Corridor.It will be patterned on the DMIC, which has financial support from the Japanese government.
The DMIC is expected to attract large investments leadingto rapid industrial growth in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Maharashtra through the development of new cities, industrial zones, and world-class infrastructure. It uses the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor as the backbone and is one of the most significant developments taking place in the sphere of industrialisation.
