Prince of Qatar to invest rupees one lakh crores in Modi’s ‘smart city’ project
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi might have skipped Qatar while planing his foreign visits, the Prince of Qatar had his eye on one of the fastest growing economies of the world. Prince of Qatar Sheikh Dr. Hamad Bin Nasser A A Al-Thani , member of ruling family along with his Indian partner Mitesh Sharma is all set to invest approx Rs. 1,00,000 crores in Modi’s ambitious ‘smart cities’ project in coming years. This will be the first of its kind project in India.
The focus of this huge investment is on ten smart-city projects in a first phase, whereas, the partners have shown interest in investing in various other areas well – power, solar energy, infrastructure development, healthcare and education. They would be laying the first foundation key stone ceremony in the next three months (most probably in February-March, 2015) and if things go well, they might think of investing more.
Mitesh Sharma, a young Indian entrepreneur is handling all investment proposals in India. While he is identifying various project areas and locations to be worked on, he has already met many senior officials in India. The conclusive decisions over investments will be taken by Sheikh Dr. Hamad himself.
Both the partners had met Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu and Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav separately last week. On the behalf of NRS, sheikh Dr. Hamad and Mitesh have already signed a MOU in AP for a smart city project. Investments worth Rs. 12,000 and Rs. 60,000 crore will be made in Uttar Pradesh & Andhra Pradesh respectively. 38,000 crores will be diversified in sectors like power and natural gas. Moreover, the team is already working on huge investment plans for various other projects.
With this investment, PM Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘smart cities’ project is attracting more foreign investments. Watch out this space to know what happens next.