Let’s participate in this growth story that India is working on and let’s see how we can make the best use of available facilities and also come up with ideas for the future, said Piyush Goel addressing the Investor Round Table Conference on National  Industrial Corridor  Development  Program in the capital.

Addressing the conference the minister also warned against any slackness. “18 states are being urged to do their decision making very quickly, offer the land, otherwise we will be forced to foreclose those projects and maybe offer them to other states who might be willing to speed up the investment,” said Piyush Goyal.

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Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal has taken serious note of land squatting by state units and urged the States to put the NICDC projects on the fast track and set a deadline for acquisition and allotment of land in industrial nodes and clusters. The Minister said that the units must be set up soon which would lead to the absorption of new technologies and the creation of jobs.

NICDC is India’s pioneering Infrastructure program, developing new industrial cities as  ‘Smart cities’ through the convergence of next-gen technologies, creating benchmarks and competition with

the best manufacturing/investment destinations in the world. The NICDC was approved by the Government in December 2020  for the development of  11 industrial corridors with 32  state-of-the-art projects to be developed in  4 phases by 2026-27.

A combined investment of Rs. 16,760 crore has been already done in the 4 cities for the 173 allotted plots. The four ‘Smart’ industrial cities are emerging at Dholera (Gujarat), Shendra Bidkin (Maharashtra),  Vikram Udhogpuri  (MP)  & Integrated Industrial Township in Greater Noida (UP).

The Minister pointed out that India has again emerged as the world’s fastest-growing economy and scaled the highest ever exports of $670 billion, Goyal urged entrepreneurs to take advantage of Government initiatives such as the NICDC, Digital India, Smart Cities, $1.4 trillion huge infrastructure projects in the National Infrastructure Pipeline, NICDC facilities and financial inclusion.

“Ultimately the nation’s assets have to be put to good use. As we say in business management terminology, ‘Let’s sweat our assets as much as we can, let’s put to use whatever infrastructure or facilities that are created wherever to the maximum possible use,” he said.

Stating that one NICDC project is on the cusp of taking off, Goyal said several states are offering incentives under NICDC projects. CEO, Greater NOIDA has committed to allotment of land in 20 days and CEO, Dholera has offered a 50% discount on the land cost to the first anchors for the first 30% of plots available, he said.

At the national level, Infra initiatives are being driven by the Government’s flagship program –  PM Gati Shakti. It will play a key role in streamlining the remaining 28 NICDC projects under implementation to bring down the logistics cost.