India’s urban landscape is being changed irretrievably. The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation’s (DMICDC) dedicated freight corridor, which will begin at Rewari in Haryana and travel through Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to end in Mumbai. It will also involve the setting up of 42 new manufacturing cities along this entire stretch.

The DMICDC perspective Plan One is prepared by Richard Ellis and Scott Wilson for the freight corridor projects estimates that 231 million people presently reside in this region. Massive migration from rural India will require the setting up of six new mega cities and several smaller manufacturing hubs with smaller populations to absorb 287 additional people expected to move into these cities.
Leading MNCs, including McKinsey, comparing the rate of urbanisation unfolding in both India and China, have asserted that these unprecedented rates of growth will require an equivalent rapid development in the urban infrastructure and that India will need to invest $1.2 trillion only dedicated to the capital expenditure in its cities over the next 20 years.
Amitabh Kant, chairman of DMICDC, feels there is a need to built compact and vertical cities, using more steel and glass instead of the traditional mortar and brick, to allow them to come up quickly.
These new cities will contain housing facilities that will be close to the workplace, and the challenge for the DMICDC will also be to ensure that these cities are connected to highways, railways and ports, whatever the case maybe.
The DMICDC has hired several international city planners, including Scott Williams, to prepare a perspective plan for the overall DMIC corridor.
Halcrow Consulting Company has prepared the plan for the Ahmedabad-Dholera investment region in Gujarat and for the Dadri-Noida-Gaziabad region in UP. Another consortium led by LEA Associates is looking at the Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow investment region in Madhya Pradesh and the Jurong consortium is looking at the Manesar-Bawal region in Haryana. Another two other consortia, led by AECOM are looking at both the Igatpuri-Nashi-Sinnar and the Dighi Port industrial area.
Finally, a consortia led by Kulper Compagnons is working on the Khuskera-Bhiwadi-Neemrana region in Rajasthan.
As Mr Kant asserts, “Each of these consortia are in turn using the skills of other consultants to ensure that the master plan produced is extremely comprehensive and benchmark to the best in the world.”
Constructions costs for the first seven cities range from between `35,000 to `75,000 crores. Presently, the estimated cost of the first city under construction in Dholera is expected to cross over `75,000 crores.
Gujarat remains the most business friendly state and has already acquired 27,000 hectares of land for building the new city of Dholera while the acquisition of the remaining 23,000 hectares is underway. Site surveys have begun as has work on the 15-18 lane highway connecting Dholera and Ahmedabad.
The UP state government, after signing an MOU with the DMICDC has also set up a high-level committee whose members include the chairmen of authorities of Noida, Greater Noida, Yamuna Expressway, as well as senior bureaucrats of Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr.
The government has already agreed to earmark `3,500 crores every year for the next five years along this 1,483 km corridor. Another `500 crores per year per industrial city as grant starting 2011-12 as grant for the creation of capital assets to catalyse the development of these cities will be done a government source pointed out.
Another `200 crores will allocated to build infrastructure. These resources are expected to be placed in a DMIC Project Implementation Fund empowered to raise long-term debt finance.
The project is not without its critics who are extremely suspicious of why the government is setting up 42 new “manufacturing hubs” instead of improving the infrastructure and other facilities in the already existing cities along this corridor. “Many of these cities are historical and have evolved over centuries. Crucial resources to rebuild them are being bypassed which explains why 29 per cent of growth is based on real estate speculation,” said Prof Vikram Soni, a physicist working of public welfare campaigns, of Jamila Milia Islamia.

(This is the first part of a 2-part series)