Kerala begins talks with DIC on Smart City

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 4 (UNI) Senior officials of Kerala today began talks with representatives of the Dubai Internet City (DIC) on the proposed Smart City IT Project in Kochi on the basis of revised conditions put forward by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.

The Kerala side was represented by Mrs Sheela Thomas, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, and IT Secretary P G Tensing. The DIC team comprised Director Fareed Abdul Rehman, Business Development Officer Deepak Padmanabhan, Property and Partnership Relations Senior Manager Baju George and Assistant Business Manager (Projects) Deepthi Khosla.

The government had already made it clear that the Infopark at Kochi would not be handed over to the Smart City promoters as offered by the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government. It had also rejected the DIC's demand that other IT parks should not be allowed in nearby areas.

The proposal for Smart City came up during the UDF period and the LDF, which was in Opposition at that time, came out against alienation of the state's assets such as Infopark to the promoters of the project.

The previous government had agreed to hand over the Infopark and abide by a clause not to allow any government-backed similar IT park in the Smart City vicinity. The UDF government did not go ahead with the project after Assembly elections were declared. UNI PN ROY PV DS1617