EXPLAINER | Boost for manufacturing: Why India needs more industrial parks – Industry News

The Union Budget 2024 has proposed 12 new industrial parks under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme. Alok Chaturvedi explains the concept of industrial parks and industrial corridors, and their role in building a strong manufacturing base in the country

l  What is an industrial park?

AN INDUSTRIAL PARK is a relatively large geographical area where common infrastructure, plots and built-up area are provided for setting up industries as fast as possible. Common facilities may mean, internal roads, electricity, common effluent and sewage treatment plant, warehousing facilities, workers’ housing, other business facilities and social amenities. There may be different building byelaws suitable for industrial units. There is also a ‘Single Window System’ to provide various clearances in a time-bound manner for setting up an industrial unit in the park.

As per the India Industrial Land Bank maintained by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), there are over 4420 industrial parks/zones in the country, covering a total area of about 5,60,000 hectare. There are several variants of industrial parks, such as Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs), National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs), Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and Industrial Clusters/ Parks/ Regions/ Areas/ Estates, developed and maintained by governments and the private sector, or a combination of both.

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l From mixed-use to sector-specific

MIXED-USE PARKS ACCOUNT for about 64% of the total number of parks. This is in line with the past trend of government-led development focusing on ensuring supply of industrial land with the demand determining the ultimate land-use. This trend has reversed now, with focus on developing sector-specific parks, with the increasing realisation of different infrastructure requirement for different sectors, such as Petroleum, Chemicals, and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIR), PM Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM Mitra) Parks Scheme, Mega Food Park Scheme, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), etc. This is evident from the fact that a majority (33.17%) of the balance parks are accounted for by only 10 sectors —engineering (529), metals (156), textiles (127), food processing (121), chemicals (118), capital goods (110), automobiles (105), biotechnology (91), electronic hardware (71), and pharmaceuticals (41).

l  Location of these parks

THE WESTERN AND southern states of India accounts for about 83% of the available land, and the top five states with the highest amount of available land (together accounting for 73.61% of total lad available) are from these two regions. These five states — Tamil Nadu (19.59%), Maharashtra (18.82%), Gujarat (17.89%), Rajasthan (9.83%) and Karnataka (7.48%) — together account for 73.61% of the total area under industrial parks.

l  How is the Budget proposal different?

THE 12 new industrial parks proposed in the Budget would be developed under the DPIIT’s National Industrial Corridor Development programme. Of this 12, two are planned in Andhra Pradesh and one in Bihar. The basic aim is to develop futuristic industrial cities which can compete with the best manufacturing and investment destinations in the world. These new industrial parks will provide complete “plug and play” infrastructure till the plot level along with building resilient and sustainable future-ready cities. Environment clearance is taken for the entire city and industrial units do not have to take individual clearances. There is a Special Purpose Vehicle which is in charge of the city and acts as the Single Window System. Under the National Industrial Corridor programme, 11 industrial corridors have been taken up for development with 32 projects along these corridors.

l   Industrial corridors along which these are envisaged

THE DELHI MUMBAI Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is the first industrial corridor project being developed on either side of the 1504-km-long Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) between Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Navi Mumbai. Substantial progress has been made on this corridor. Four industrial cities —Dholera Special Investment Region in Gujarat, Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Area near Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Integrated Industrial Township Project at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Integrated Industrial Township Project ‘Vikram Udyogpuri’ near Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh — are being developed here.  Eight industrial regions have been identified for development in the first phase of DIMC. Some of the prominent investors include Hyosung, Amul, Piramal Pharma, Vedanta-Foxconn, ReNew, Power and Tata Chemicals. While 28 companies have started commercial operations, another 72 are building their units in these four cities.

The other corridors are Chennai-Bengaluru, Amritsar-Kolkata, East Coast economic corridor, Bengaluru-Mumbai, Extension of Chennai-Mumbai to Kochi, Hyderabad-Nagpur, Hyderabad-Warangal, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Vizag-Chennai and Delhi-Nagpur corridors.

The writer is director-general, Export Promotion Council for EOUs and SEZs.

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