As majority stakeholder in the Amritsar-Kolkata eastern industrial corridor, Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday demanded all states coming within the ambit of the plan be made a part of the inter-ministerial panel set up by the PM two days ago.
?The Centre should take the views of all the states through which the corridor passes,? Yadav said.
The IMG, constituted by PM Manmohan Singh on Friday, will examine the feasibility of setting up the AKIC, along with structural and financing arrangements. It will submit a report within a month.
Yadav said that it was necessary to have a corridor on the lines of the DMIC to boost development in the eastern part of the country. ?We had written to the PM in April, asking him to expedite the eastern corridor. And we are happy that the Centre has taken cognizance of our opinion,? he said.
?The western industrial corridor will bring development to the states through which it passes. These states are already developed and this corridor will help them develop firther. We had written to the Prime Minister requesting him to ensure industrial development along EDFC by establishing a separate corporation like DMIC Development Corporation, which covers Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharastra. The eastern industrial corridor has the same potential as the western corridor,? he said.
With almost 1,050 km out of the 1,840-km corridor passing through UP, Yadav has pinned all hopes on the Amritsar-Kolkata stretch.
The UP government is proposing to set up a Paschimanchal Investment Zone on 2,000 hectares in Muzaffarnagar-Meerut-Modinagar, Braj industrial zone on another 2,000 hectares around Chola-Aligarh-Mathura-Khurja, 6,000 hectares Etawah-Auraiya-Kannauj industrial zone, a logistic hub on 6,000 hectares in Kanpur-Unnao, 300 hectares of Allahabad-Naini-Bara investment zone and a Mughalsarai-Varanasi industrial zone.
?All these industrial zones have been planned along the industrial corridor alignment?, Yadav said, adding ?when developed states are being benefitted by the industrial corridor, why should non-developed states not benefit similarly??
The 1,049-km stretch of the corridor in UP will pass through Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, GB Nagar, Firozabad, Etawah, Kanpur, Fatehpur, Allahabad, Mirzapur and Chandauli.
