Greater Noida steps on the gas

Greater Noida in expects to garner Rs 10,000 crore investment in five years. In the past 10 years, a commitment for around Rs 9,000 crore of investment has been received, mainly in the heavy and medium scale industries.

At present, 408 units comprising 72 heavy and medium scale industries with an investment of Rs 8,800 crore and 336 small-scale units are functioning in the area.

"Attracting investment should not be much of a problem as in past two years over 386.5 acres of land has been allotted to private companies," said SP Goyal, additional chief executive officer of the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA).

The focus of the authority was on establishment of large-scale units and several manufacturing units were coming up, he said. A cluster approach was being followed, where space was earmarked for specific class of unit, for an organised development, he said.

PK Sinha, another additional chief executive officer of GNIDA said Greater Noida had an edge over other areas adjacent to Delhi like Noida and Gurgaon in terms of space, infrastructure and privatised power distribution.

Greater Noida would be made accessible from all sides through roads unlike Gurgaon, which had just one approach. For this, apart from the six-lane expressway linking Greater Noida to Delhi, a Faridabad-Noida-Ghaziabad expressway was also being constructed, he said. It would also be connected to Delhi through Metro by 2010, he added.

However, Greater Noida have had its own share of problems and many projects are delayed. For instance, even though the contract for the 160 km Taj expressway, connecting Delhi to Agra via Greater Noida, had been awarded, the project got stalled.

A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe was instituted in September into the award of contract. Sinha attributed the delays to change in governments in Uttar Pradesh.

On complaints about erratic power supply, Sinha said only the rural areas were facing problems because the they had unmetered supply.