Corridor of inclusive growth

Industry recommends logistics solution to industrial and social growth.

The government in Karnataka has been considering various proposals-including the Global Investment Meets-that have promised much to the industry. But in reality, not much has happened from the government and the industry. The state government has evolved an Industrial Policy 2009-14; however, this is not commensurate with industry needs in providing enabling infrastructure such as industrial parks. Infrastructure has been the main lacuna. Contrary to what the policy states, allotments are being made without basic amenities such as water, power and approach. The labour policies haven’t been very conducive either. Over the past year in Karnataka, some progress has occurred in the Electronics Systems Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT policies. It remains to be seen how the policy takes shape, especially given a continuing political instability in the state whose infighting has marred progress over the past few years.

The Suvarna Karnataka corridor plans to connect all the 29 districts in the state, but this has remained only on paper. Additionally, nearly 440 km of the Chennai-Bangalore-Mumbai, or the Peninsular Region Industrial Development (PRIDe), Corridor passes through Karnataka, and although not much has happened on this corridor either, there has been some movement in the last couple of months.

A few months ago, CII and the Karnataka ICT Group (KIG) associated with each other and submitted a set of recommendations (the KIG 2020) to the state government, which both the IT Minister and the Chief Minister liked. They have promised to look into the proposal, but we have yet to hear back about the matter. Our proposal includes an Expressway corridor from Mysore to Bidar. The main "spine" would cover about 800-odd km, with East-West feeders with ribbon development and an integral freight corridor that would eventually link up to the proposed North-South rail link.

The corridor would cost around Rs 60,000 crore. The government needs to invest this amount, which it can earn back. The corridor is designed to simultaneously support industry, agriculture and tourism. Travel from Mysore to Bidar, which now consumes 16-18 hours, would take less than eight hours. So the corridor would be a part of an inclusive growth.

The express(way) solution

The CII proposal for a Rs 60,000 crore expressway corridor between Mysore and Bidar entails the following elements:

• High speed road and rail connectivity
• Cuts down travel time by over 50%
• 14-lane highway with 4 lanes dedicated to freight traffic
• 7 major Investment Zones along the trunk route of 12,000 acre and 10 zones of 6,000 acre along the feeder route
• Connects various industries like steel, cement, food processing, agriculture, IT, automobile, sugar, pharma, media to cities and towns
• Freight Corridor/HSRL/Commuter Rail System within the Expressway Corridor along the Trunk route
• Intersects the Chennai-Mumbai Corridor: 4 major interchanges
• 500 m green buffer zone to compensate for carbon emissions
• Employment along the Integrated Industrial Corridors
• Establishment of education and medical institutes on corridor
• 7 along the trunk & feeder routes
• Connects 4 major ports (Mangalore, Honavar, Tadadi, Karwar)
• All industrial corridors would be well connected by road, rail and sea with a travel time of not more than five hours
• Major boost to tourism with hub and spoke development

TS Rajagopalan, the author, is a member of the Infrastructure Task Force Committee, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Bangalore. As told to Infrastructure Today.