India Plans Industrial Corridor Bigger Than Japan

[Jambhalheart]

[b]DHOLERA, INDIA: Chotubhai Raghani's fields in a dry, salty strip of Indian coastline on the Arabian Sea never yielded much wheat but he feels like a lucky man now he's started selling them at a juicy markup.

He expects his land may one day make way for a car factory or an air-conditioned shopping mall, all part of what may be India's most ambitious infrastructure project ever.

Excitement is rising almost as quickly as land prices in his village, one of the sites chosen for building 24 industrial cities from scratch along a 1,483 km (920 mile) railway line.

The government plans to build a corridor bigger in land size than Japan, stretching from New Delhi down to the financial hub Mumbai in the west, that could help transform India's economic landscape and give its choked, teeming cities room to breathe. "It's going to change our lives," said Raghani. "We've tilled this land for generations but we only get a small mouthful out of it."

Sceptics call the $90 billion project, known as the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), over-ambitious. India, bogged down by corruption, staggering bureaucracy and land battles, has a long history of failed infrastructure plans. [/b]

[ROUDRAM]

malli panning aa [img]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_KVkPY2XIbRQ/TWAgXprYLuI/AAAAAAAABCo/VzL0ae41lc4/brahmi%20laugh.gif[/img]

[The QUEEN]

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[tom bhayya]

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