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Maharashtra launches Operation Airlink

The Maharashtra government has taken up an ambitious project worth Rs 500 million to airlink industrial zones, and has decided to construct 10 airstrips in the next 18 months.

Maharashtra Minister for Industries Liladhar Dhake said the project was aimed at linking districts to the state capital to enhance developmental activities in all the districts simultaneously.

Dhake, who is also chairman of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, said MIDC has already constructed airports at Baramati and Yavatmal, apart from improving the airports at Kolhapur and Ratnagiri. In the next 18 months MIDC will take up the job of constructing airstrips in the districts of Ahmednagar, Beed, Bhandara, Buldhana, Gadchiroli, Nanded, Parbhani, Raigad, Sangli and Sindhudurg.

Work on the airstrips had already commenced in January and the project is likely to be completed by next year.

This is in line with the state's industrial policy to attract investment, for which essential infrastructure was necessary and to which the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government is fully committed, Dhake said.

The state is also undertaking the construction of a 'millenium industrial Park' at Mahape, situated seven km away from Vashi in New Bombay. The Rs 2.5 billion project, likely to be ready by 1999, extends over an area of 170,000 square metres in the electronic zone of New Bombay, where 1,362 industrial modules specially designed to meet the needs of software, light engineering, garments and services sector are being constructed.

Apart from this, several other ambitious projects are also on the anvil, including the Rs 100 million Suvarna Laghu Udyog Yojna, a Rs 8 billion project for developing high-quality industrial infrastructure, a Rs 500 million export promotion industrial park at Ambarnath, expansion of the export promotion zone at SEEPZ, Bombay, a Rs 500 million Indo-German toolroom at Aurangabad, Rs 2 billion central government growth centres, and expansion of Barvi dam for augmenting water supply in the Bombay city area.

To financially cater to the projects, MIDC's chief executive officer A Ramakrishnan said the corporation proposes to raise Rs 7.5 billion for the projects undertaken by it. Out of this, while Rs 3.5 billion has already been sanctioned by the Smallscale Industrial Development Bank of India, MIDC proposes to float bonds by August to raise the rest of the money, he said.

Maharashtra's Minister of State for Industries Prabhakar More said the state government will offer sops to industry. "We never felt shy of running vada-pavstalls on street corners, and we will show the same vigour to manufacture software," he said.

State Industries Secretary Yeshwant Bhave said the state is still a favoured investment destination and maintains a foothold in the industrial development map of the country.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi launched the official website of the state government, at a function to launch a booklet reviewing MIDC's performance, Udyog Bharati.

UNI