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| Tecom gives time till Dec to sort out the freehold land issue |
| Press Trust of India / Kochi Jun 01, 2009, 16:20 IST |
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Dubai-based developers Tecom, whose IT project in Kochi — SmartCity — has run into rough weather over land issues, today demanded an assurance from the Kerala government that it would get freehold status for 39 acres of land by December this year.
"We are not asking for the freehold today or in six months time. We want a re-assurance from the government that the project would be entitled to the freehold status on the 39 acres, SmartCity CEO Fareed Abdulrahman told reporters here.
"The government has to assure us that whenever the masterplan is ready, we will get the freehold," he said.
Tecom has been demanding freehold states for 39 acres of the total 246 acres of land alloted to the Rs 1,500-crore project which envisages a potential to create 90,000 jobs.
Abdulrahman said they were insisting on freehold status as lots of foreign direct investment would be coming once the project gets going and they were only asking for a re-assurance from the government in this regard.
He said as of now they had no plans to shift the project to any other state. "We are very eager to start the project. We want to bring the IT infrastructure, create more jobs and bring business to the city and boost Kerala's economy," he said.
"The phase I of the Kochi project is on hold until there are positive signs," he said.Asked about Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan statement that the project was not taking off due to Tecom's financial constraints following the global downturn, Abdulrahman said he was not aware on what basis such statement had been made.
'The phase I of the Kochi project is on hold until there are 'positive signs',' he said.
Abdulrahman said they were insisting on freehold as lot of Foreign Direct Investment would be coming once the project gets going and they were only asking for a re-assurance from the government in this regard.
He said as of now they had no plans to shift the project to any other state. 'We are very eager to start the project. We want to bring IT infrastructure, create more jobs and bring business to the city and boost Kerala's economy,' he said.
The construction of the SmartCity project at Malta has begun and it was going smoothly, he said.
Asked if he was unhappy with the government's attitude, Abdulrahman said 'perhaps other things are keeping the government busy. There were elections but this is not a small project,' he said.
On why the masterplan was getting delayed, he said 'the land is huge, the masterplan will be prepared in phases.'
During his visit in February this year, he had met the Chief Minister and Fisheries Minister.'We have written to them, communicated several times after that. 'Yes there is delay in responses. It should not be like this', he said.
Tecom had in April this year made it clear that they had not pulled back its personnel from the Kochi project, but had put on hold additional recuritment of human resources until the freehold land issue was resolved.Abdulrahman said he had come to clarify reports on the issue and would leave for Dubai today itself.
The government had alloted about 246 acres of land for the project at nearby Kakkanad, out of which about 136 acres had got in principle SEZ status from the centre.But the final notification was yet to come as the land has not yet been registered.
The lease agreement signed between the Kerala government and the Smart city project of Dubai on May 13, 2007 had lapsed in November last year. A fresh agreement was yet to be signed.
The bone of contention between the government and project developers is the insistence of the latter for about 39 acres of freehold land which should be included in the lease agreement, according to them.
Meanwhile, Opposition leader and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy during whose tenure the project's MOU was signed in 2005, alleged that unnecessary changes were made by the LDF government in the agreement which has resulted in the stalemate.
Due to the delay in the project's implementation , the Youth congress activists took out a march to the project site today which was inaugurated by Chandy.
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