Often it takes one man to make the impossible, possible. The much-discussed Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project seems to be back on track and ready to take off. Construction and other related activities have begun in over half of the eight investment regions envisaged under the project.
The man driving the project is Alkesh Kumar Sharma, CEO and managing director of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC). A 1990-batch IAS officer of Kerala cadre, he has managed to get projects off the files and into action mode in the past six month. He took charge in October last year.
“Construction has begun across the Ahmedabad-Dholera region in Gujarat, Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Park
in Maharashtra and Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow regions among others. We have over 20,000 acre of land already with us. Environment clearances have been taken across all projects. Many of these projects should be completed by their deadlines. Some in 2018, others in 2019. The greenfield airport at Dholera should finish by 2020,” Sharma says with confidence.
Sharma has earlier worked in roads ministry and with union minister Nitin Gadkari where he was involved in finding solutions to several bottlenecks that were hampering the construction of highways and expressways. He has also headed the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation in the past.
“The work is moving at a fast pace in Dholera,” says Sharma. Dholera is located around 110 kilometre from Ahmedabad.
Consisting of a vast shoreline and a huge parcel of land, the Dholera project is seen as a world-class industrial hub with integrated residential areas and social amenities. In short, a smart city. Dholera has a total area of 903 square kms, of which 540 sq kms will be developed. It will also have a greenfield airport and a hub for maintenance, repair and overhaul for the aviation sector.
“Companies from Taiwan, Korean, Hong Kong, Germany and others have made enquiries on land and facilities in these hubs. We will be ready to allocate land from November this year. We will also do roadshows to give a marketing push to these projects,” says Sharma.
Sharma has another 30 months at the hot seat extendable by another 24 months. Will DMIC’s success help NDA in 2019? It seems so!
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.
