India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corridor

[parijataka]

Why do we need UK help in building highways and townships ? Also, sure fire recipe for large scale ecological disaster in the beautiful state of Karnataka.

India considers partnering UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corridor

LONDON: India is "actively considering" UK's offer of partnership to build the mega 1000-km corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore.

A joint statement issued here after British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne met Indian finance minister P Chidambaram for the sixth round of their annual economic and financial dialogue said India may also co-finance a feasibility study.

According to forecasts, 5.8% of India's population growth would be in the corridor, contributing 11.8% of the country's gross domestic product growth by 2020.

By 2030, if realized, the project could generate close to half a million jobs, while indirect jobs could bring the total in the region to two million.

The idea was first pitched by Cameron during his recent India visit earlier this year. "With me I've got architects, planners and finance experts who can help India develop new cities and districts along the 1,000-km corridor that would link the financial capital of Mumbai with the IT hub of Bangalore," Cameron said.

In the Bangalore-Mumbai corridor, the industrial areas that would be covered include Vasanth Narasapura (Tumkur), Bharamasagara (Chitradurga), Shimoga, Savanur (Hubli), Haveri, Kushtagi-Gadag, Yelburga (Gadag), Belur (Dharwad), Hukeri (Belgaum), Navanagara (Bagalkot). Tumkur is where a national investment and manufacturing zone (NIMZ) has been planned.

NIMZ would be integrated industrial township spread over 5,000 hectres.

The idea to set up the corridor also got official endorsement in Chidambaram's recent budget speech.

Recently in another strong pitch to India, minister of state at the foreign and commonwealth office ( FCO) Hugo Swire told the TOI that "the concept has been given birth to and is presently in its infancy" with both parents - India and UK "keen to see it have a good life."

Calling it a misnomer to call it a corridor that will generate investment projects worth up to $25 billion, Swire told TOI "Other corridors have been built in India by Japan. We are in dialogue on how to get UK to help India build the Mumbai Bangalore corridor. The fate of the corridor will be on whether states want it.

Swire, who was part of Cameron's largest ever contingent to India earlier this year said "it is a misnomer to call it a corridor. It is actually an entire belt that will have hospitals, schools, shops, malls, accomodation, business sites and energy requirements. UK companies can do a great job in creating this infrastructure."

Britain is the largest European investor in India, and more than half of Indian businesses in Europe are located in Britain. Trade between India and UK is set to double to around Rs 1.67 trillion by 2015. Cameron's office said officials on both sides have been working on the Mumbai-Bangalore project since last year and had produced an initial assessment of its scale and potential. The British government would be willing to co-fund a feasibility study, on a match funding basis, with the Indian government costing up to £1 million.

 

[Tolaha]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Why do we need UK help in building highways and townships ? Also, sure fire recipe for large scale ecological disaster in the beautiful state of Karnataka.

Same as UK needing India's help to build cars and steel plants! :fkidding: And what about the beautiful state of Maharashtra, doesn't your usual plane route go over Maharashtra? (as you obviously don't use roads!). Folks, every time there is any infrastructure project announced in India, do we really have equate it with "ecological disaster"? India is starved of roads, trains and ports. We need a lot more of them! While we do have to try our best to minimize loss of forest cover while planning any such mega project, as we do have enough examples of countries suffering due to them, let's also remember that we are a country with an under-developed manufacturing sector and under-employed educated youth!

Mumbai-Bangalore corridor in news again, due to the visit of UK's PM.
Mumbai-Bangalore corridor set to create 25 lakh jobs - The Times of India

The government is set to kick off preliminary work on Wednesday on an economic corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore, aiming to generate investment of over Rs 3 lakh crore.

The plan is to generate around 12% of the country's GDP along the 1,000 km corridor between the two commercial towns. Although the details are yet to be worked out, sources said, at least four new cities, each trying to boost manufacturing activity is envisaged. A million homes and 2.5 million jobs are proposed to be created along the corridor.

So far, the Indian and the British governments have agreed to undertake a joint feasibility study. In the next stage, the government will on Wednesday seek bids for developing a perspective plan for the Bengaluru Mumbai Economic Corridor Region. The consultant will also suggest a backbone along which the corridor will be built. In case of the eastern and western corridors, the government intends to build cities along dedicated rail lines meant to speed up freight traffic. "In case of Bengaluru-Mumbai it can be a road too, but that needs to be decided," said a source, privy to the discussions.

An excellent project, if it works out as it is planned! The Bangalore-Chennai corridor would hardly be of any use to KA or AP due to the way it is planned and the say TN politicians have over any national project makes this corridor mostly redundant for KA and more so for AP. But the Mumbai-Bangalore corridor could be a real game changer. As the politicians of MH and KA are equally concerned (read it as equally inept if you wish) about these matters, the routes are most likely to be determined by technocrats! This makes the corridor most likely to have a higher chance of achieving its objectives.

The objective of this project:

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday he wanted his country's companies to help India develop new cities and districts along a 1,000 km (600 mile) corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore, generating investment projects worth up to $25 billion.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/economy/mu...ys-cameron-629210.html?utm_source=ref_article

The plan is to generate around 12% of the country's GDP along the 1,000 km corridor between the two commercial towns. Although the details are yet to be worked out, sources said, at least four new cities, each trying to boost manufacturing activity is envisaged. A million homes and 2.5 million jobs are proposed to be created along the corridor.

The routes are not finalized yet. As per wiki, the route will cover these cities: Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Belgaum, Dharwad, Davangere, Haveri, Chitradurga and Tumkur. Hopefully the actual route will be quite some distance from any of these cities. The focus has to be in building brand new cities, as in the excellent example that we see already shaping up, as in the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Still better, avoid existing cities and highways altogether. Rather, connect it through towns that are not even connected currently, while not diverging too much from the end points. Hoping for a good planning and execution of this project, that results in futuristic cities in KA and MH.

 

[praneetbajpaie]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

anybody who thinks England is a friend of India is an idiot (no offence), just have a look at their media.

 

[Dovah]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

anybody who thinks England is a friend of India is an idiot (no offence), just have a look at their media.

You mean Daily Mail? It is more like IndiaTV on our side. It would be highly illogical to base our relation with a country on the comment section of a cheap tabloid, if a venture is profitable to us we should not hesitate to participate.

Regarding idiotic, racist coments from the internet, you are welcome to contribute here.

 

[Dinesh_Kumar]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Pray wat wonderful tech will the brits bring while constructing this 1000km road, that is not already available with homegrown giants like L&T, GMR, Tatas, Pallonji Mistry, etc.? Do UK, S. Korea and Japan invite our firms for road building contracts? Why are we dong this? Is it a dole for being friends with India, which at best of times is uncertain?

 

[SPIEZ]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Pray wat wonderful tech will the brits bring while constructing this 1000km road, that is not already available with homegrown giants like L&T, GMR, Tatas, Pallonji Mistry, etc.?

Capital is the main problem, as it has always been.
Additionally, the companies you have mentioned, and many more will be getting more orders, so no worries there.

Do UK, S. Korea and Japan invite our firms for road building contracts? Why are we dong this? Is it a dole for being friends with India, which at best of times is uncertain?

Because they have a much better and a highly advanced infrastructure industry. Consider this the 103 story Empire State building was constructed in 1932. Plus South Korean and Japanese infrastructure make American infrastructure look simple.

 

[p2prada]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

That investment plan is 1/4th that of the Mumbai-Delhi corridor, but such large investments in the country is a good thing.

 

[Abhijeet Dey]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Kolkata & North Eastern parts of India will be ignored again in infrastructure development.

The economic paradox of north-east India

LINK: blogs.reuters.com/india/2009/12/18/the-economic-paradox-of-north-east-india/

India's seven northeastern states, known as the seven sisters, have been "on the map, but off the mind", if one goes by the title of a Tehelka-organised seminar on the Northeast.

The region, connected to India by a narrow stretch of land called the "chicken's neck", has been through a string of conflicts, seen the rise of many rebel groups, lack of infrastructure and poverty.

The World Bank describes conditions in the region as a low-level equilibrium of poverty, non-development, civil conflict and lack of faith in political leadership.

According to the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, more than 426 billion rupees were kept for the northeast between 1998 and 2006.

Also, central government ministries have been earmarking 10 percent of their annual budgets for northeastern states since 1998.

The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India has said that funds to the northeastern states add up to more than what India gets from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Even with the constant and heavy flow of funds, why is development still distant from the seven sisters?

B.K.Handique, minister for the Development of North East Region, said in Parliament that the growth rate of the northeastern states has been less than the national average.

Is it corruption in the political sphere that funds do not reach the grassroots level? Or is it because of rampant extortion by rebel groups?

Is the Northeast "on the map, but off the mind" for you as well?

 

[Abhijeet Dey]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

WIKILEAKS: South and West the best; rest holding India back says P. Chidambaram

LINK: thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/south-and-west-the-best-rest-holding-india-back/article1565389.ece

P. Chidambaram told U.S. Ambassador Timothy Roemer that India would have registered higher growth rates if the country had comprised only what are now its southern and western parts. But the Home Minister praised the Chief Ministers of Bihar, Orissa and Punjab, all of them non-Congress leaders.

He made these observations when Mr. Roemer made an "introductory" call on the Minister after arriving in 2009 as successor to David Mulford.

The two discussed several issues including counter-terrorism and intelligence cooperation, the Mumbai attacks, and the threat posed by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Mr. Roemer conveyed U.S. willingness to provide geo-location technology, if India approved the presence of American personnel to work with the technology. He asked the Minister to "push harder on your side" for the approvals. Mr. Chidambaram replied that the issue was high on priorities.

....................cont.

 

[ashdoc]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Vasanth Narasapura (Tumkur), Bharamasagara (Chitradurga), Shimoga, Savanur (Hubli), Haveri, Kushtagi-Gadag, Yelburga (Gadag), Belur (Dharwad), Hukeri (Belgaum), Navanagara (Bagalkot).

not a single city of maharashtra !!

 

[Tolaha]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

not a single city of maharashtra !!

To be honest, there doesn't seem to be much news on the MH side on this! I found many articles that mentioned the exact towns in KA that may be covered in this corridor but nothing similar regarding MH ones, other than this map! Any guesses why!?

 

[Tolaha]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Mumbai-Bangalore is just one of the many corridors that MH will be working on.

Maharashtra plans Mumbai-Bangalore industrial corridor | Business Standard

The government expects the MBIC to record investment in power, gas pipeline infrastructure, gas-based projects, information technology and agriculture. Chavan said under the DMIC, two national industrial manufacturing zones would be developed near Aurangabad in the Marathwada region and Dighi in the coastal Raigad district. To attract investments, the government is also developing the Mumbai-Aurangabad-Nagpur corridor, the Mumbai-Konkan corridor and the Pune-Supa-Kolhapur corridor.

Hopefully, they do manage to give a good amount of focus on all the projects!

 

[pkp8n]

Re: India considers partner UK to build 1000km Mumbai-Bangalore corrid

Well the problem with any foriegn funding is that it comes with whole lot of caveats attached. For example take the western dedicated freight corridor railway project, it is funded by the japanese. It has a clause that specifically says main jv partner has to be japs. Problem with this is there is virtually no competition Only 2 bidders qualified for delhi- ahmedabad. There are only 6 companies in japan that have this kind of experience . 3 dont wanna work in india . 3 are available . There will not be any competition for a 1800 km railway line costing roughly 700 million usd. The indian government needs to have some balls and negotiate harder.