SMART CITY- LDF GOVERNMENT IS PLAYING SMARTLY......

Smart City Kochi was a failed realestate project which was supposed to be constructed in Kochi. Dubai internet city potentially was the main investor of the project which has the potential to create over 100,000 jobs (direct employment to 80,000 people and indirect employment to another 20,000 people).Recently, on the wake of the 2008 economic recession, the Kerala government revealed that the Dubai Internet City authorities are lacking fund for the project, and hence the future prospects of this project is not bright

The project was originally initiated by A K Antony in 2003 when he was the chief minister of Kerala. Later, during Ommen Chandy's chief ministerial period, he was very keen about going ahead with this project. For this purpose, he invited the Dubai Internet City officials for a feasibility study and later the memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) was signed. Due to protest from opposition parties, he could not make it a reality.After V.S. Achuthananthan took over as the chief minister, he also showed interest in this project and invited the Dubai Internet City team for another round of discussions. He proposed new suggestions and altered the earlier MoU prepared during Oommen Chandy’s time.On 13 May 2007, the officials of the Government of kerala and TECOM Investments and Sama Dubai signed the final agreements

.In November 2009, the state government raised doubts about TECOM’s financial stability and made statements that new promoters would be sought if Tecom was not willing to start the project as per the framework agreement. The main hurdle was Tecom's stand on free-hold land right which the state government would not give to the promoter. In Jan 2010, the company came down from its stand that free-hold land right given to it before the project was started and conceded to the government stand that it could be given only after completion of the master plan.

LDF government for the last 3 years drag this project by saying small small excuses.Now the election time reached.so they need to do something for the people in order to get the vote for the next election.now they are acting fastly for this smart city project by giving time limit to the Tecom company and warn them that if they are not willing to do it right now they will give the project to other companies.If the government compromises a little to Tecom years before the project would have become a reality and our Kerala would become more developed.