The Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) project, announced as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project, has attracted a record investment of over ₹36 crore, officials of the DMIC Development Corporation said on Monday.
Touted as India’s first Greenfield Industrial Smart City, the AURIC has been planned across 10,000 acres in Maharashtra. As of December 2018, investors who expressed interest include global companies from the U.S., Europe, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea, said Gajanand Patil, joint managing director, Aurangabad Industrial Township Ltd (AITL). Hyosung Corporation of South Korea, is interested in investing ₹3,000 crore. The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay will be part of the engineering and designing of the AURIC and 49% of the industrial funding will be provided by central government, officials said. The Indian companies which have expressed interest in investing here include Bajaj, Skoda India and Perkins.
Mr. Patil said, “Phase I of the project, which is the Shendra-Bidkin industrial area, will be complete by December 2019. The industrial hub is expected to create employment opportunities for three lakh skilled labourers, and around three lakh people are expected to reside in the modern township. The project is also expected to be completed within the set time frame, so there will be no acceleration of costs.”
The AURIC will have industries focussed on engineering, textile, food, defence, and electronic system design sectors. The ambitious plans for the smart city project include recycling of water, global and national connectivity, waste management, power distribution, reducing the carbon footprint, environment sensors, e-education and e-health cloud hosting.
