Akhilesh Yadav hails setting up of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor

Lucknow, Aug.11 (ANI): Hailing the proposal for the setting up of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said on Saturday that the project would be crucial for his state's industrial growth.

"Industrial corridor is very essential project and would connect east and west corridor and if it will be build in Uttar Pradesh, then I think that industrial growth of the state would increase and it would also benefit the entire country on a broader scale," said Yadav.

Yadav also said the government would take the decision keeping in mind the interests of the farmers.

"The government will take the decision only after the have the backing of the farmers. It is just the beginning. The government will take the decision after taking necessary steps and receiving support of the farmers," he added.

The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is a mega infrastructure project of 90 billion dollars with the financial and technical aids from Japan, covering an overall length of 1,483 kilometers between Delhi and Mumbai, India's political capital and business capital.

Sceptics call the project over ambitious. India, bogged down by corruption, staggering bureaucracy and land battles, has a long history of failed infrastructure plans.

If the DMIC fails, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government will have lost a golden opportunity to sell India to investors and will feed the perception that, unlike China, it lacks the will to act when it counts., If it succeeds, the project could be the jolt Indian industry needs to sustain the country's heady economic rise.

The timing couldn't be better amid global financial strife, rising interest rates and domestic policy stagnation caused by government corruption cases that have dampened confidence.

New Delhi has earmarked an initial fund of 4.5 billion dollars to build the core infrastructure of each city, such as roads, power supplies and sewage treatment plants, and expects a similar contribution from the project's partner, Japan.

Once the basics are there, the thinking goes, investors will be convinced of the DMIC's value and will build factories, housing and more in a public-private partnership.

The government can then sell them the land it has acquired from farmers, using the funds to start building the next city.

Despite years of economic boom, India's infrastructure is rickety and its manufacturing sector sluggish. Transporting goods is expensive and slow-it can take more than two weeks to move a container from Delhi to Mumbai. It is hoped the new freight line will slash that to under 24 hours., The idea for an industrial corridor took shape in 2006 as a deal hatched by the governments of India and Japan, inspired by a similar project around Tokyo that helped Japan's economic rise after World War Two. (ANI)