Kochi:
Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy has defended the Smart City project
in a four-page article circulated to the media on Monday, saying that he found
"nothing wrong in being a little smart for the sake of creating job opportunities
in the State". He
said he had visited the Dubai Internet City (DIC) during his visit to the
Gulf countries in April this year. "It is the confluence of all the leading
names in the IT industry in the world: a dreamland for IT professionals across
the globe. Several of the professionals who work there are from Kerala." "On
my way back to the state, I had the dream of such an institution coming up
in Kochi. Over 20,000 engineers pass out of our professional colleges each
year. I dreamed about jobs for them in our own state and jobs for several
thousands more in allied sectors," Chandy said. The
state government does not have the financial capacity to invest R1,500 crores
in a project like the Smart City. The income generated by the IT companies
in the state comes to just Rs300 crores a year. States such as Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, which had started IT parks with private and
foreign funding, have already forged far ahead. Chandy
said it had taken some hard bargaining lasting nine months for the state government
to strike a general understanding with the DIC on setting up the Smart City
project in Kochi. Of the 300 acres of land being allotted for the project,
only 100 acres were being given free of cost, that too purely on the basis
of the IT policy of the State. The IT companies that would be brought to the
Smart City would not get any other concession. He
said the DIC had given a commitment to create 33,000 jobs in return for the
free land being given for the project. The employment benefit would be to
the tune of Rs33 crore a month by way salary. "The
market value of the 100 acres being given for the project comes to Rs 20 crores.
If, by making such a sacrifice, so many jobs can be created, it is by no means
a bad deal." The total investment on the Infopark built by the state
government and 62.27 acres of its land (which forms part of the 300 acres
being allotted for the Smart City) is less than the price of Rs109 crore fixed
for the property during the negotiations with the DIC. A
part of this amount is to be adjusted against the state government's nine
per cent equity participation in the Smart City project. For the remaining
136 acres being allotted for the project, the DIC will pay Rs36 crore, which
works out to Rs26.50 lakh an acre. This is purely based on the existing land
value in the area. He
said the Smart City would be a joint venture between the state government
and The Electronics Commerce and Media Zone Authority (TECOM), formed by the
Dubai Government under an Act of its legislative body.
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