Corporates keen on Aurangabad Industrial City

The Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) at Shendra and Bidkin near Aurangabad has seen interest from a number of companies, including Marriott, Micromax, Hyatt and the Bagla Group. While some of these entities have already been allotted land, others are in the process of exploratory discussions.

Recently, AURIC has allotted 24 plots to MSMEs using an online allotment process. This marks the beginning of the use of an e-land management system which was being tested during these initial allotments. Around 17 of the allotments have been made to Aurangabad-based firms.

Gajanan Patil, Joint MD of Aurangabad Industrial Township Ltd (AITL), which manages AURIC, told BusinessLine that the city urgently needed an anchor client to come on board.

“While companies like Marriott, Micromax, Venky’s, GeBBs and Premium Transmission have shown interest, AITL is still scouting for an anchor client. Although getting IT companies on board might be difficult, automobile manufacturers and engineering firms have shown great interest.” he said.

When contacted, Sheetal Singh of Micromax said, “We do have plans to expand our production base. We are looking at AURIC and a few other places but we can’t say that we have any preference for AURIC specifically.”

While construction at AURIC has been speedy, comparisons have been drawn with the Dholera Smart City in Gujarat which is spread over 928 sq km.

Paresh Patel of the Dholera Special Investment Region Development Authority told BusinessLine that unlike AURIC, only land for infrastructure will be bought by the development authority. Industries will have to buy land directly from the owners. Both Dholera and AURIC are aiming to be among the first greenfield smart cities.

Asked about the attraction of AURIC to investors, Patil said “AURIC is definitely far ahead of other Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) nodes in terms of infrastructure. AURIC will have free WiFi in public spaces, an integrated central command and control room, underground electricity and data cables in precast underground structures, smart streetlights and sensors to monitor essential public utilities.”

A tender for the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) worth ₹120 crore has been floated by AITL.

However, concerns regarding the slow pace of the progress of such plans and exaggerated features have been doing the rounds. Aamer Azeemi, a smart-cities consultant, said, “We need to be patient. These cities will actually have world-class features that are spoken about extensively. However, being green field smart cities, a greater amount of time is needed to develop urban development plans.”

In the past, many industrial townships have either not been completed or have not been able to garner much investment.

Asked whether AURIC could face the same challenges, Patil said, “With the main challenge of land acquisition having been overcome successfully, AURIC, being an extension of an existing industrial area, will not face the same issues. Also, when MNCs look to invest in India they factor in the availability of a vendor base in the vicinity and Aurangabad being a developed industrial region will definitely make them look at this township favourably.”

The Gujarat government had earlier said that Dholera’s infrastructure will be up and ready by 2019. On the other hand, phase 1 of AURIC will be complete by 2018 and the entire city is expected to be complete by 2022.

Spanning an area totalling 10,000 acres, the city is one of many greenfield industrial townships coming up on the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). Maharashtra Industrial Development Council (MIDC) has provided land equity worth ₹3,000 crore to buy land and transfer it to AITL.

COMMENT NOW