The Hindu : Front Page : SmartCity work awaits notification

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Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008
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SmartCity work awaits notification

Staff Reporter

— Photo: Vipin Chandran

MAKING A POINT: SmartCity Kochi CEO Fareed AbdulRahman addressing the media after the director board meeting held in the city on Monday. Also seen are Rashid Latif Almullah, vice-chairman of SmartCity Kochi (second from right), and Fisheries Minister S. Sarma, chairman of the project.

KOCHI: Fisheries and Registration Minister S. Sarma has said that the date for launching the work on Smart City can be fixed only after the 136 acres of the project land receives Special Economic Zone (SEZ) notification from the Union government.

The statement dashed the hope that Monday’s director board meeting of the prestigious project would come up with a definite date.

Addressing presspersons after the board meeting, Mr. Sarma, who is the chairman of the project, made it clear that no tentative date had been fixed.

Asked how much time it would take to get the work started, he said that it depended on the time taken to receive the notification from the Union government.

The Board of Approval for SEZs of the Union government had granted approval in principle to 136 acres out of the 246 acres of project land identified at Edachira, near here, in March.

However, the SEZ status gets formally conferred only after the board issues the notification.

Mr. Sarma said the SEZ Commissioner and other officials would visit the project area as part of efforts to issue the notification.

He, however, said the visit would take place only after a settlement was reached on a case filed by a person in the Kerala High Court against displacement.

This, he said, will take a couple of weeks.

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