NEW DELHI: Delhi govt is exploring the possibility of developing three new industrial areas in the city, specifically in west and northwest Delhi, as turnkey projects on a public-private partnership basis.
Govt may also organise the much-anticipated global industrial summit, which was announced by chief minister Rekha Gupta in her budget speech for the 2025-26 financial year in the last week of Oct or the first week of Nov.
While presenting the budget, Gupta said that Delhi had immense opportunities for investments in the fields of information technology, banking, tourism, data storage, and electronics, and the investment summit was planned to leverage that opportunity.
Delhi industries minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa stated that the request for proposal to hire a global agency for the three industrial areas in Kanjhawala, Ranikhera, and Baprola is being prepared and is likely to be floated within a couple of months. The same agency may be tasked with organising the summit and bringing investors to the capital.
Sirsa mentioned that with nearly 1,200 acres of land combined in the three proposed industrial areas focusing on service industries such as IT, IT-enabled services, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and research, there was potential for creating lakhs of jobs in the city in the next few years.
While there is nearly 147 acres of land in Ranikhera, where the previous AAP govt proposed to set up an industrial hub, a world-class electronic city with ‘plug-and-play’ facilities was planned in southwest Delhi’s Baprola, where govt has a huge land parcel of 137 acres. Delhi Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation even initiated the process to hire a consultant to suggest possible options for the optimum utilisation of the 920-acre land parcel in Kanjhawala by assessing the market and demand and also making a financial assessment to propose economically sustainable possible business models.
Govt earlier planned that Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) would develop these industrial areas as per the provisions of Delhi Industrial Development, Operation and Maintenance Act, 2010. Sirsa said the three industrial areas may be planned on Mahindra World City, a special economic zone coming up in Rajasthan, or a proposed industrial park in Odisha for which a Singapore-based global player has signed a memorandum of understanding with govt of the state. Sources said the board of DSIIDC has already approved the proposal to develop the industrial areas as turnkey projects.
Delhi currently has 29 planned industrial estates and 25 non-conforming pockets spread across the city. A number of planned industrial areas under the jurisdiction of DSIIDC have a large number of vacant plots. Officials accept that investors prefer to set up industries in neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and don’t see Delhi as a preferred destination.
