Ever since our honourable PM Sh.
Narendra Modi announced “100
Smart Cities Mission” we have been hearing so much about smart cities, we
have so many questions about smart cities, like how are they made? What is
basically a Smart City? How an existing city will be converted to something
robotic wherein everything will be done by machines or technology? What are
Greenfield and Brownfield Cities? What sort of technology is used in making
smart cities? Like these there is an endless list of such questions and today I
thought let me just put all these questions together and explore Dholera
Greenfield Smart City from its core to the peak.
Yes, we are talking about much
talked Greenfield Smart City, India’s First and DMIC’s (Delhi Mumbai Industrial
Corridor) biggest Smart and Sustainable Dholera
Smart City and what will make Dholera a “Trillion Dollar Baby”.
What is DMIC (Delhi Mumbai
Industrial Corridor) and Dholera Smart City will add value to this corridor?
A Special Purpose company was
formed to facilitate and promote DMIC or Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor with
the name of DMICDC or Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation
Limited. However, when more Industrial Corridor projects were announced, the
mandate of DMICDC was expanded to develop and implement all the Industrial
corridor projects and name of DMICDC was changed to NICDC means National
Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) Limited.
Government of India is working on
to develop various Industrial corridor projects as a part of National
Industrial Corridor programme with an objective to develop various futuristic
industrial cities which will emerge as best manufacturing and investment
destinations across the globe. The National Industrial Corridor programme will
generate a lot of direct and in-direct employment which will in-turn result in
economic growth and we will see overall socio-economic development of our
country. 11 Industrial Corridors Projects are being taken up for development
with 30 Projects to be developed in 4 phases up to 2024-25
- ·
Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) - ·
Chennai Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC) - ·
Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC) - ·
East Coast Industrial Corridor (ECIC) with Vizag
Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) as Phase 1 - ·
Bengaluru Mumbai Industrial Corridor (BMIC) - ·
Extension of CBIC to Kochi via Coimbatore - ·
Hyderabad Nagpur Industrial Corridor (HNIC) - ·
Hyderabad Warangal Industrial Corridor (HWIC) - ·
Hyderabad Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (HBIC) - ·
Odisha Economic Corridor (OEC) - ·
Delhi Nagpur Industrial Corridor
These Industrial Corridor
programmes are to be developed in phases where in NICDC will work in
coordination with state governments for the development of these corridors and
along with these a lot of new industries smart cities will be developed.
Let’s talk in-depth about Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor
Overall length of Delhi Mumbai
Industrial Corridor will be 1504 kms and it will cover several states including
UP, Delhi NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra with end terminals
at Dadri in Delhi NCR and Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) near Mumbai.
8 new Industrial Regions are to
be developed along with DMIC Corridor. These regions will redefine the
development of new future cities not only in India but across the Globe. Below
are the names of these regions:
- ·
Dholera Special Investment Region in Gujarat - ·
Manesar Bawal Investment Region in Haryana - ·
Pithampur – Dhar – Mhow Region in Madhya Pradesh - ·
Shendra Bidkin Industrial Area (SBIA),
Maharashtra - ·
Khushkhera Bhiwadi Neemrana Investment Region,
Rajasthan - ·
Dadri Noida Ghaziabad Investment Region, UP - ·
Jodhpur Pali Marwar Industrial Area, Rajasthan - ·
Dighi Port Industrial Area, Maharashtra
So, these are our new 8 future
cuties to be developed along with DMIC alignment and Dholera SIR is going to be
one of the largest Smart and Sustainable Greenfield Industrial City in making
and that is how Dholera adds a special value to DMIC. Dholera is going to
create a self sustainable eco system through which 3 pillars of sustainability
that is Social, Environmental and Economic will be covered completely.
What are Greenfield and Brownfield Smart Cities?
Why Dholera is a Greenfield Smart City and what is an advantage of investing in
a Greenfield Smart City?
We’ve been hearing about Smart
City so much these days, let talk about how these cities are categorized in
Greenfield and Brownfield.
Greenfield Smart Cities
Greenfield Smart Cities are
developed on barren land. Usually these areas are identified far from the
cities or existing cities and where there is scope of development and where it
will be beneficial to people. As the name itself suggest it’s just Greenfield,
where no development has
ever happened and everything gets
started from zero. In India, Greenfield Smart Cities program comes under
Ministry of Commerce.
Brownfield Smart Cities
Brownfield Cities are those
cities which are already exiting and we try to convert them into better
developed cities by implementing various technologies like sensors across the
city, smart traffic management, technologies like IoT, ICT, wi-fi etc. widening
of roads, expressways, highways, roads and services. Cities like Faridabad or
Noida in Delhi NCR or Surat or Ahmedabad in Gujarat are few examples of
Brownfield Smart Cities.
Modi Govt. in 2015 launched 100
Smart Cities Mission which is under Ministry of Urban Development (MoUd).
So, Greenfield and Brownfield
Smart Cities are totally different concepts and has nothing to do with each
other. Complete work approach, execution process, everything is different, even
ministries are different for both the concepts.
Dholera being developed from
barren land has seen no development before; this essentially means that Dholera
comes under category of a Greenfield Smart City. Bigger than Delhi and Mumbai
and conceived like international cities Frankfurt and London, Dholera is all
set to give exponential returns on investment to its investors. At the present
moment, Dholera is in early development phase and development of Dholera is
also happening as per the Master Plan designed.
Are there any other Greenfield
Smart Cities in the world getting developed like Dholera?
Oh yes, in various parts of world
such Greenfield Smart and Sustainable Cities are developed from scratch. Some
of the examples of such cities are:
- ·
Belmont Arizona Smart City in United States of
America - ·
Songdo, International Business District (Songdo
IBD) in Seoul, South Korea - ·
NEOM in Saudi Arabia - ·
Masdar City in the Unite Arab of Emirates - ·
Fujisawa Tokyo in Japan
How do you see Dholera becoming a
self reliant and self sustainable smart city?
Dholera SIR is spread across 920
sq kms, however, developable area will be only 420 sq kms so that question
arises like what will happen to the rest of the designated area. And, the
answer is that area has been kept for nature, yes, you heard it right, in rest
of the area will be kept for renewable energy generation, parks, green spaces,
tree plantations, water reservoirs, solar parks etc.
Today Frankfurt is one of the
best examples of a sustainable city as half of the city is actually just green.
Similarly, Dholera is being conceived which is going to make it the most
sustainable smart city on this planet.
Dholera is also following 3 major
pillars of sustainability which are Social, Environmental and Economic. Social
pillar takes care of people and people reflects mobility and quality of life
like infrastructure of the city, smart transportation, healthcare, education,
income inequality, work-life balance, all these indicators focus on quality of
life. Environmental pillar will take care of our planet and it will take care
of renewable energy share of the city, recycling rates, solid waste management,
water treatment, potable water, sanitation etc. And, last pillar that is
Economic which is all about profit and assesses business environment and
economic performance of our city. Ease of doing business, easy taxation
policies, single window clearances, living cost, property cost, GDP per capita
and of course energy efficiency. It’s like creating an importance of your city
in the global economic networks.
About Author: Ms. Meenakshi
Khurana, Managing Director, SmartHomes Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. which is the
pioneer in Dholera Real Estate market as technically most advanced and
innovative developers & builders.
SmartHomes Infrastructure:
SmartHomes Infrastructure Private Limited, a real estate developer entered the
Dholera market 6 years back and now is one of the leading and most innovative
developers and land owners of inside Dholera SIR and on border of Dholera SIR.
SmartHomes Infrastructure owns huge land parcels & multiple projects in
Dholera Smart City. Smart Homes is focusing on developing projects in TP 1, TP
2 and 11 sub TPs of Dholera SIR which will be on both side of Express Highway
near Airport and on the border of Dholera SIR.
Smart Homes mainly deals in
Commercial, Industrial and Residential Land and Projects. Our customers are
High Net worth Individuals, NRIs from more than 20 countries, multinational
companies and its employees from organisations like ISRO, ICICI, SBI, UCO
Banks, Army, Navy and Air force.
International businesses that are
looking to start their industry in Dholera, Smart Homes provide them end to end
solutions from land acquisition, required permissions from the government for
setting up an industry and residential set up for employees.
To be continued in Dholera
Greenfield Smart City – A Trillion Dollar Baby Part 2
Disclaimer: These are my personal
views based on my own research and experience of working in Dholera for last 6
years. Views may vary from person to person so kindly do not form any opinion
without doing your own research or due diligence.