Kerala - Kochi   

Centre benevolent to State: Antony

A K Antony

KOCHI: No Union government had been as benevolent towards Kerala as the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said Defence Minister A.K. Antony here on Friday.

He was talking to mediapersons at the Coast Guard district headquarters in Fort Kochi on Friday, after an investiture ceremony to present medals to Coast Guard personnel.

Answering a query on the bifurcation of the Palakkad railway division, Mr. Antony said he had intervened in the issue, though he did not come up with a statement.

“It is not my style to indulge in a war of words on any issue,” he said.

To a question on how well he was taking up the cause of Kochi’s development, Mr. Antony said he had taken up the need to speed up work on the proposed container transhipment project at Vallarpadam at least a dozen times, with successive Prime Ministers.

“As the then Chief Minister of Kerala, I played the prime role in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sanctioning the project. Unfortunately, some local-level disputes are hampering the progress of the works. There is need to commission the project on a war footing. I enquired with the deputy chairman of the Cochin Port Trust about the progress of the works,” Mr. Antony said.

The State capital will soon get the country’s premier space institution and work on the Naval Academy at Ezhimala in Kannur will be over by 2009.

This will make it the biggest such academy in Asia. Funds paucity will not come in the way of commissioning of the project.

Within a week, the Union Cabinet will discuss the setting up of the Kannur airport, he said.

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