DMIC corridor to get Rs 40,000-mn investment

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government plans to set up country-specific zones along the Delhi Mumbai Freight Corridor (DMIC), which is likely to attract investment to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore over the next few years. Around 40 per cent of the DMIC corridor falls in Gujarat.

'The government is toying with an idea of earmarking areas for companies from a particular country to invest. We have made some provisions for the same in the new industrial policy,' said Saurabh Patel, minister of state for industries.

With Japan joining hands for the DMIC project, a number of Japanese companies have lined up to invest in the state along the corridor.

The state government is already planning to organise the proposed Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors' Summit 2009 in partnership with Japan. 'If Japan accepts the proposal, it will be for the first time that Gujarat will organise such a big investment summit with any country,' said a senior government official.

According to the new industrial policy, the state will create three new economic corridors to house four special investment regions (SIR), 10 logistics parks along DMIC and a slew of industrial parks. The three economic corridors identified by the state government are Bharuch-Dahej-Umargaon, Vadodara-Mehsana-Palanpur and Surendranagar-Rajkot-Morbi-Kandla.

The logistic parks along the DMIC corridor will come up near Palanpur-Mehsana, Ahmedabad-Surendranagar, Gandhidham-Samakhiyari, Dahej-Bharuch and Hazira-Surat.

Gujarat, which has been lagging when it comes to attracting FDI, hopes to get a substantial chunk of it in the forthcoming summit.