The Hindu : Front Page : `Smart City decision in one week'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 13, 2007
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`Smart City decision in one week'

P. Venugopal

Achuthanandan did not divulge the terms DIC has agreed to accept

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State Government hopes to take a decision on having the Smart City project with the involvement of Dubai Internet City (DIC) in a week's time, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said here on Friday.

He stated this when presspersons asked him questions on Smart City at a function here. He did not divulge the terms the DIC had agreed to accept. "Wait and see," he said.

Meanwhile, sources in the Government told The Hindu that the DIC had come a long way from the position it had originally taken.

The main point of difference between the Government and the company now concerned stakes sharing. The Government was insisting on having a 26 per cent stake in the project, while the DIC was ready to concede only nine per cent.

This project was envisaged as a Special Economic Zone of the information technology (IT) industry on 98 hectares of land at Kakkanad in Kochi. The DIC had originally wanted the Government-run Infopark, an IT campus located close to the site identified for Smart City, to be made part of its project to prevent business competition.

It had now given up the demand.

The previous United Democratic Government had promised 40 hectares of land free to the DIC for the project.

This demand too has been abandoned by it during the negotiations with the Government after the Left Democratic Front (LDF) came to power.

Another key gain for the State in the present negotiations is that the DIC has agreed to accept the land on a lease for 99 years, instead of having outright possession as agreed to earlier. The price the DIC is ready to pay for the land too has increased substantially, a top Government official said.

"Equity sharing is the main point of dispute at the moment. The Government does not want the negotiations to drag on indefinitely. The Government feels that it needs to have a higher level of equity participation in the project so as to ensure that the land allotted is used to the optimum for IT industry," the official said.

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