FM seeks States’ cooperation in development of Industrial Corridors

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently urged states that there should be no politicisation of economic development and that they should all work collectively as Team India to iron out the issuesindevelopingindustrialcorridors.

Her comments came while chairing the ‘2nd meeting of the Apex Monitoring Authority’ of the National Industrial Corridor Development & Implementation Trust (NICDIT) through virtual mode. They had alleged that the Centre has violated the spirit of cooperative federalism through severalofitsrecentdecisions.

Meanwhile, Sitharaman sought the support of the states to resolve the issues in operationalising the industrial corridors such as expediting land acquisition and facilitating implementation of external infrastructure linkages,amongotherissues.

The meeting was also attended by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Vice Chairman of Niti Aayog Suman Very and officials of 16statesaswellasofficialsofvariouscentralministries.

Sitharaman reviewed the progress of projects under NICDIT.

NICDIT aims to create greenfield smart industrial citieswithsustainable,‘plugnplay’&ICT-enabledutilities.

Duringthereview,specialsecretaryintheDepartment for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) apprised that as per the directions of the finance minister in the previous meeting, round-table conferences, roadshows and meetings with international associations are being organised at different places with support of statesandspecialpurposevehicles.

NICDIT is within the overall framework of PMGatiShaktiNationalMasterPlan.

It aims to create quality infrastructure and keep land parcels ready for allotment to attract investments in the manufacturing sector and position India strongly in global valuechains.

For the development of industrial corridor nodes, multi-modal connectivity is being provided by different central ministries under various flagship schemes like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, National Waterways, Dedicated FreightCorridorsandNationalGasGridamongothers.

Sitharaman during the meeting, emphasised on the importance of freight corridors, industrial corridors, Railways and Expressways to further ignite industrialisationandeconomicdevelopmentinIndia.