South Korea to invest in Maharashtra’s Smart Cities

South Korea to invest in Maharashtra's Smart CitiesMaharashtra will ink a deal with South Korea to build Mumbai-Nagpur expressway project.

The deal will be signed during Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis South Korea visit in September. He will also visit Japan and Singapore.

The 706 km expressway will give a boost to agro-based industries and generate employment.

Maharashtra has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Korean Land and Housing Corporation, an undertaking of the South Korean government that specialises in land development, town planning and creation of housing stock.

It is expected that many infrastructure deals will be sealed during his three nation visit.

“The Korean government had initially expressed interest in building the expressway, but we do projects through competitive bidding. Then they were keen to build the nodes. We have prepared detailed notes and presentations in Korean, and we are likely to sign a deal that would bring investment for the expressway project as well as others,” a Maharashtra official said.

KLHC will assist the government to build 24 townships created along the proposed expressway, and may also take up the development of a couple of nodes by themselves. The project will cost Rs 12,000 crore.

Apart from the Expressway project, the Korean government plans to invest in smart city projects, which are being implemented in Maharashtra under the Centre’s ‘Smart Cities’ mission, and the revamp of Bandra’s government colony – a 93-acre sprawl of crumbling buildings near the Bandra-Kurla Complex.