Dholera got Rs 3,000 crore as part of DMIC project, says BJP

Hyderabad: The controversy over Central funding for Dholera city in Gujarat deepened further on Thursday after the Gujarat government put out an advertisement giving out details on where the money is coming from. AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has diverted funds to Gujarat and was spending Rs 44,000 crore on the development of Dholera city. At the same time, no funds had been given to building the Amaravati capital city, he has said.

Both BJP president Amit Shah and PMO minister of state Jitendra Singh have denied the allegations, and stated that the Centre was not funding Dholera. The city was being developed by the Gujarat government with its own funds. According to the Gujarat government advertisement, the Centre is committed to providing Rs 3,000 crore for the development of Dholera as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). Of this, the Centre has released Rs 1,293 crore, it said.

The total outlay of the Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) is Rs 57,000 crore. For the development of DMIC, the Gujarat gover-nment and the Centre have formed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Dholera Industrial City Develop-ment (DICDL). For this SPV, the Centre is providing cash as its equity and the Gujarat government is providing 5,204 hectares of land. The DMIC is developing eight industrial nodes along the western dedicated freight corridor between Delhi and Mumbai; Dholera with a developable area of 423 sq km is one of the nodes.

BJP spokesperson and MP G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said the Central government was giving Rs 3,000 crore for the development of Dholera city part of the DMIC as investment and not as a grant.  He said the Central government and Gujarat were jointly developing the project. Mr Narasimha Rao said that the Dholera Special Investment Region was sanctioned in 2011 by the then Congress-led UPA government.