The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday cleared an outlay of ₹28,602 crore to set up 12 industrial parks across 10 States and along six major industrial corridors, in line with an announcement in the Union Budget.
The government said these greenfield industrial “smart cities” can attract potential investments of ₹1.5 lakh crore, creating a potential 1 million direct and up to 3 million indirect jobs. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal signalled these were ‘conservative estimates’ and said these projects, that will offer investors a ‘plug and play’ alternative to set up shop, will be completed in three years, with land acquisition and environmental clearances already in place.
While one location was not named due to the model code of conduct for assembly polls, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh will host two parks each, and one would come up in Gaya, Bihar. Dighi in Maharashtra will host one of two new facilities proposed along the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
The CCEA nod covers the development of one industrial park each along the corridors coming up between Vizag and Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Nagpur, and Chennai and Bengaluru. These include two parks of about 2,600 acres in Kopparthy and Orvakal in Andhra Pradesh, a 3,245 acre facility in Telangana’s Zaheerabad and a 1,710 acre park in Palakkad, Kerala.
These are the first set of about 100 investment-ready “plug and play” industrial parks with complete infrastructure in or near cities, in partnership with the States and private sector, by better using town planning schemes, announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this year’s Budget.