Modi lays apparel park foundation stone in city

Chief minister Narendra Modi on Sunday laid the foundation stone of the much-awaited Ahmedabad Apparel Park, which the state feels will help Ahmedabad regain the title of Manchester of India, which it lost even as several textile mills closed down over the past two decades.

Interestingly, the proposed park will later be converted into a product specific SEZ, which means this will be Ahmedabad's first SEZ.

Located at the now defunct Shri Ambika Mill Compound, the proposed park will be spread over an area of 14.80 hectares and will offer 44 plots of varying sizes to companies. The plots will vary from sizes of 1000 square metres to 3000 square metres and will be given out on a long term lease period.

Minister of state for industries Anil Patel said that the state expects the park to be operational by May 2005. Patel said there is likely to be a huge demand for textiles and garments and setting up of an a park in Ahmedabad will boost textile sector and also value addition of garments.

The state government, through the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), will provide infrastructure such as four-laned roads, paved footpaths, underground RCC drainage system, a water and power supply network, streetlighting, compound walls and other landscaping.

Also, a provision will be made for underground collection of sewage, which will be treated at a Common Effluent Treatment Plant within the park.

Earlier, while laying the foundation stone for the proposed park, chief minister Narendra Modi said the park will provide employment to at least 50,000 persons.

Modi said the government also proposes to set up a separate SEZ for sari printing and processing industry of Jetpur near Rajkot. The government of Gujarat has also chalked out plans to set up an apparel training and design centre within the park, in association with the apparel export promotion council, New Delhi.

Most importantly, being classified as a SEZ, companies will have access to cheap labour where units will be allowed to retrench and employ labour according to their requirements.

For the first time ever, the government entered into a bidding and purchased property of Shri Ambica Mills in Ahmedabad, through the GIDC, at a cost of Rs 15 crore.

It has now decided to set up an park at the site, which will ensure that value addition of cloth manufactured in Ahmedabad, can take place at the city itself. Barring a few companies, cloth manufactured in the city, is sent to other cities for value addition, thus the entire chain of production is disrupted.