Why should Noida be the next destination for new MNCs, Corporates?
Why should Noida be the next destination for new MNCs, Corporates?
Tejinder Singh Bedi
@tsinghbedi
Recent announcements of a slew of mega projects announced by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditya Nath have suddenly positioned the Noida, Greater Noida & the Yamuna Expressway belt ahead of all other major cities in the NCR region of the capital.
With the progress for the Jewar airport already making news, the announcement of setting up a massive and a sprawling 1000 acre film-city in Noida has put the well planned industry cum commercial window of the State in spotlight once again.
Besides its close proximity to the political capital of power, the belt has remained one amongst the best planned regions in the country. In particular, its new areas like the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway Zone connecting with both the corridors to Greater Noida and the Yamuna Expressway further ahead offer huge open spaces between its commercial cum residential places, relatively larger parking spaces close by, backed further by its multi-lane wide roads to ensure fast and smooth rides, service cum slip roads amidst slush green covers on both the sides. From the drainage point of view too, Noida stands out far ahead of both Gurugram and Faridabad — both of which have made sufficient news in the last few rainy seasons gone as the next optional destinations to set up offices and businesses, close to New Delhi, the capital of the country.
The Noida -Greater Noida region has really come up very fast in the last about five years with most international brands, multiplexes, shopping malls finding good footholds here one after the other. As high as 50 % of its developed areas are expected to be retained as green today.
The passionate zeal with which the UP CM is pushing his State to draw a much bigger parallel to the film capital of the country like the Bollywood -which is already too congested and too water logged in every rainy season -despite many of its traditionally ingrained pluses for its growth there, has obviously rattled a few of the century old bastions of film producing families or production houses of Mumbai on this move of the UP, CM.
Besides, although the UP Government had taken an initiative to set up a film city here in its Sector 16 A long back in the past too, in 1988 — its overall landscape and area of 100 acres which included only 25 acres for studios and film production infrastructural labs allotted to it remained more of an apology for its purposeful and rightful expansion and growth and it should be no wonder that the more powerful media houses of the country later almost completely took over this territory for an objective completely different from what it had been planned for.
The new project is now all set to take off from the 1000 acre landscape in Sector 21 of YEIDA on the Yamuna Expressway of which 780 acre site is to be dedicated for use of the film-centre alone with just the 220 acres left for various other commercial ventures.
The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, earlier known as the Taj Expressway Industrial Development Authority (TEA) is now the nodal agency responsible for implementing the Yamuna Expressway Project and allied development in the region. Almost, matching development of the next adjoining Greater Noida Industrial Area which is located at the intersection of the Western and the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors and is also a gateway to the Delhi — Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) also offers this belt the additional quality urban environment for attracting economic activities from all over.
The Jewar International Airport, (56 kms from Noida and 72 kms from the Delhi International Airport) is expected to be fully operational by 2022 — in just about a year with a target of commuting 50 lakh passengers per annum expected to increase to 6 crore when in full bloom and pitted as Asia’s largest airport built over a land area of 12355 acres with plans to connect it with Delhi with a Rapid Train project should make the belt further very attractive for future investors. To be raised through an investment of Rs 29500 crores excluding another 3500 crores earmarked for the Rapid Train Project, these two mega projects alone are expected to bring an investment to the tune of 100,000 crores in the Noida, Greater Noida, YEIDA and Ghaziabad belt.
The glamour and glitter of the new mega film city over and above these massive projects one hopes will offer the much needed attraction to both domestic and foreign business houses to open their new ventures from this nodal zone. An added advantage over this emerging backdrop is that the newly developed Sectors 137 & around all through on the Noida/Greater Noida expressway are also immediately available for a large number of ‘just ready to move in corporate parks’ built with a state of art infrastructure and available at much lower rental costs as compared to those in Gurgaon or Manesar as the only other apparent options closer to Delhi today.
On top of this, Haryana Government’s latest move to ensure reservation of 75 % of the jobs in the private sector with salary less than Rs 50000 a month for the locally domiciled population (born there or domiciled for over 15 years) for the next ten years, as provisioned through the Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act 2021 that has also already got the assent of the Haryana Governor can jolt quite a large number of corporate houses, MSMEs, SMEs, Tier 2 & 3 companies and some other establishments to come under pressure to relocate in adjoining States. Further, as per the Act, which is aimed to apply to all the companies, societies, trusts, limited liability partnership firms, partnership firms and any person employing 10 or more persons besides any entity as may be notified by the government from time to time, every employer has to register employees on the government portal. U P Government should welcome any such attrition from Haryana to ensure these jobs and enterprises do not move away from the Northern belt at least as a relocation to Noida/Greater Noida would still keep them within the NCR of the Capital!