PHD Chamber has come up with a number of suggestions to make Delhi, a mega polis of world standard. It has recommended unveiling of a new Trade and Investment Promotion Policy for Delhi for a period of five years, to realise the industrial and commercial potential of the city.
The objective of the policy should be to develop sophisticated, high value added, capital intensive, high tech and knowledge based industry without compromising the present image of this commercial hub. Economic development should coincide with toning up of the urban and civic facilities to cater to a population exceeding 20 million by the year 2015.
Simultaneously, an imaginative plan should be envisaged for slowing down the migration of unskilled people into the city, by creating gainful employment opportunities in centres from where people tend to migrate.
Such development activities should be carried out with joint efforts of the Centre, home State and possibly the Delhi government.
According to PHD Chamber, the new policy should identify the present strengths and weaknesses of Delhi and define its future scope, funding pattern, organisational structure and opportunities for public and private partnerships. Focused areas for creating business opportunities are hi-tech services sector like IT, bio-tech, banking, retail, insurance, consultancy etc.
The policy should also focus on manpower planning with definite schemes for promotion of export oriented and import substituting industries. These must be restricted to authorized and designated industrial areas, the operation, maintenance and management of which should be the sole responsibilities of the Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation(DSIDC). For this, at least 50 % of house tax collected from these estates by MCD should be shared with DSIDC for development and upkeep of these areas.
Currently, there are several agencies like NDMC, MCD, DDA, Delhi Cantonment Board, DUAC for providing civic services in Delhi. They are for specific areas/items of works. As a result, these agencies keep on shifting the responsibility on each other. The Delhi government has no control over these agencies. This type of governance must change and a strong coordinated dispensation with clear-cut mandate and accountability should be fixed.
be put in place.
There is also merit in levying pollution tax and higher rates for use of electricity and water from undesirable industries.
With 1.5 million mobile phones and 2.4 million landline connections, Delhi has a very high communication penetration compared to other Indian cities. Despite that NCR has not been able to attract many ITES companies. Most of the IT units in NCR belong to the IT Enabled Services (ITES) such as call/contact centres, back-office operations, web site services, web applications, and data processing/ management/digitization. Reasons why hardcore software developers are shying away from Delhi are intermittent power supply, inadequate public transport etc
Delhi can be developed as a hub for gems and jewellery, textile & garments. Importantly, infrastructure facilities should be toned up for training personnel involved in these occupations to upgrade the skills and to give them the right exposure of what is happening around the world in the fashion industry.
More pragmatic approach towards mixed land use, obliterating if not narrowing the difference between industrial and commercial activities for land use, evolving new building bye laws to reflect the realities in the mega polis particularly relating to Floor Area Ratio (FAR), number of floors for the buildings etc are the other suggestions of PHD Chamber.