Govt mulls body for industrial corridors' development

The government is again looking into setting up a national body to coordinate development of industrial corridors in the country.

An industrial corridor is a package of infrastructure spending allocated to an area, to stimulate industrial development.

The National Industrial Corridor Authority (NICA) has been proposed to ease integrated development and fund management of the five proposed corridors, commerce and industries minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Parliament on Wednesday.

Announced by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech in July 2014, plans for NICA were earlier reported to have been shelved owing to delay foreseen by the Prime Minister's Office and the cabinet secretariat in getting Parliamentary approval. The government wanted the body to be conferred 'statutory' status similar to that enjoyed by the National Highways Authority of India.
 

Later, a Cabinet note was sent to the ministries concerned, seeking comments on a plan to make the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) the coordinating body for all such projects. At present, DMICDC can be made the coordinating agency after a simpler process of acquiring Cabinet nod, rather than obtaining parliamentary approval for NICA, a commerce ministry official said.

But, the confusion over whether industrial projects fall under state list or Union list of the Constitution would need to be settled, the official added. Currently, industries form part of the State List, except those mentioned as "industries" under the Union List - those declared by law, for war, defence and in public interest.

Parliamentary approval was earlier sought to ensure all matters pertaining to 'national industrial corridors' come under the Union List and this would in turn prevent conflicts with State authorities and ensured better Centre-State coordination for expediting proposals, it is learnt.

"NICA will develop project development activities, appraise and sanction projects apart from coordinating central efforts." Sitharaman said.

Currently the proposed corridors apart from DMICDC are Bengaluru- Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC); Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC); Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) and Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC).

Master planning for all the three nodes in CBIC and all nodes except for 'Dadri Noida Ghaziabad' investment region under DMIC have been completed. The remaining corridors are in the initial stages of implementation.

Various trunk infrastructure projects like development of roads, drainage, sewage, potable water, water treatment, sewage treatment plant are being developed under DMICDC