Rise of Smart Cities: Gujarat's Dholera Zone Gets A KickStart in New Year

BANGALORE: The New Year has already begun and government seems to be bullish on its promised ambitions of 2014. And this can be clearly make out from the triggering of “Smart Cities” programme along the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor (DMIC), which is located in Gujarat.

If the reports are to believed then the Dholera project in Gujarat that worth around 3, 000 crore is to built on a wide spread area of 22.5 sq km.

Earlier PM Modi announced about his dream project of building 100 ‘smart cities’. And apropos to India's 100 smart city programmes, Modi has also initiated steps for a "Digital India," with allocations for components such as smart cities, virtual classrooms, and technology startups. Also a budget of $1.2 billion was completely set aside for cities alone.

According to Talleen Kumar, CEO of DMIC Development Corp, "We are set to roll out four smart industrial cities by March, inviting bids from all across the globe. We have held several meetings with various governments and investors from different countries in the past many months including Germany, the UK, US, South Korea, etc," reports The Economic Times.

The investment plans more than 1,200 crore would require CCEA (Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs) consent. Around 35-40 percent of projects are trunk infrastructure, for which funds are provided by the DMIC Trust whereas the rest of the 60-65 percent projects are being controlled under the public-private partnership model.

"In Greater Noida, 747 acres have already been transferred to the special purpose vehicle. For the 84 square km Shendra-Bidkin industrial park, we will begin with inviting bids for the Shendra region first," added Kumar.

Google is willing to provide inexpensive internet access across India through a network of helium-filled baloons, while Facebook too is keen on being a partner in the National Optical Fiber Network programme. This programme also aims to connect 2.5 lakh village panchayats through high-speed broadband by 2017.

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