DIC-Kerala Govt talks on Smart City on positive track

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 4 (UNI) The prospects of the 'Smart City' project coming up at Kochi brightened today with both the Dubai Internet City (DIC) team and Kerala Government officials claiming that the renewed talks on fresh conditions are on a positive track.

''Both the sides come up with new ideas and discussed them on a positive manner,'' DIC team head Fareed Abdul Rehman told newspersons here at the conclusion of first day's talk.

The outcome of the meeting would be hopefully known by tomorrow, he added.

Kerala IT Secretary P G Tensing also stated that things were on a positive track. Some new points came up for discussion and the DIC team appreciated them.

The DIC team is likely to meet Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan tomorrow as he was the person who strongly opposed the Rs 1500 crore project when he was the Leader of the Opposition.

The project, envisaged during the regime of the previous United Democratic Front Government, run into rough weather after Mr Achuthanandan strongly opposed the handing over of the Government-owned Infopark to the DIC and also certain conditions in the draft agreement.

After visiting the Infopark at Kochi today, the Chief Minister made it clear that there was no question of handing over the 90 acre Infopark to the DIC for its proposed 'Smart City' IT park.

According to sources, in today's talks, the state government had made it clear that it could not hand over the Infopark to the DIC as part of the project. Also, the government was strongly opposed to the provisions in the earlier MoU signed during the Oommen Chandy government that no government-run IT parks would be allowed in Kochi.

It is learnt that the DIC was willing to have a relook into their earlier demands if the government accepted certain fresh demands like concession in land purchase and others.

Mrs Sheela Thomas, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, who was present at the meeting told newspersons that the details of today's discussions would be brought before the Chief Minister and other ministers. The government was hopeful that the Smart City project would come up at Kochi itself.

Besides Mr Rehman, Business Development Officer Deepak Padmanabhan, Property and Partnership Relations Senior Manager Baju George and Assistant Business Manager (Projects) Deepthi Khosla also took part in the discussions representing the DIC.

UNI CR JJ PV RN2009