Washington: The ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) has the potential to play a significant role in advancing the goal of making India a global manufacturing and trading hub, according to a leading business advocacy organization.
“The DMIC, while still in early stages, has shown great promise for the future of India. By increasing industrial capacity, manufacturing, and transportation infrastructure, the DMIC will play a significant role in advancing India’s goal of becoming a global manufacturing and trading hub,” US-India Business Council (USIBC) has said.
Spanning across six states and two union territories, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan – DMIC is home to nearly 20 per cent of India’s population, 43 per cent of GDP, 40 per cent of the factories and workforce, 50 per cent of the agricultural crops and 60per cent of total exports, it said in its latest report.
The report is aimed at encouraging American companies to invest in the ambitious infrastructure project of the Indian Government.
While originally conceived as a joint development scheme with Japan, India has opened bidding to its companies and joint ventures due to the complexity and sheer number of projects that the DMIC entails, the report said, adding the land acquisition phase is in progress and opportunities for Western companies are available.
“In spite of the ongoing obstacles that are inherent to taking on infrastructure projects in India, the DMIC stands as a bastion of transparency in navigating common bottlenecks,” USIBC said, noting that the project will see major expansion of industrial clusters, rail, road, port, air connectivity, and other essential infrastructure in the states along the route of the corridor. USIBC said while the original timeline for the DMIC called for the industrial townships to be completed by 2019, Maharashtra and Gujarat have taken significant actions toward project completion.
Gujarat has already begun working on the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) which is designed to become the central business district in the state, it added.
DMIC Development Corporation (DMICDC), it said, expects that the venture will provide more than three million jobs and triple industrial capacity in the area covered.
“Given the comparatively high industrial output of the DMIC member states, the economic environment would show significant improvement and become the engine of the Indian economy,” it added.
