The industrial corridor for Palakkad announced in the State budget by Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac in the Assembly on March 4 and the steps taken to set up the Railway Coach Factory in Kanjikode industrial area will accelerate the industrialization of the District.
The Cochin LNG terminal proposed to be commissioned in 2012 will have a main pipeline to Palakkad that could supply gas and power to the District so that more industries could be set up taking advantage of the cheap power available from the gas project.
The Kanjikode-Pudussery-Walayar industrial belt has already become the second biggest industrial area of the State after Kochi.
The State government has allotted 426 acres of land at Kanjikode for the Rail Coach Factory. Though the Union Railway Minister in her budget speech in Parliament said that the work on the Coach factory in Palakkad is progressing, there was no token provision made for fund in the budget.
The project is being taken up as a Public Private Participation (PPP) project for which token provision could be included even during the passing of the Railway budget in Parliament, the sources in the Railways said.
The Coach factory will also bring more than 100 ancillary industrial units to the area A rail coach required 1000 components. So a number of small and medium level industrial units are required to make these components, the Railway officials said.
There is also a proposal to set up an IIT in Kanjikode for which the Government had identified 300 acres of land because the area has large number of industrial units and research centres like Fluid Control Research Institute (FCRI).
The proximity of Palakkad to Coimbatore-Tiruppur industrial area is another major advantage. The Tiruppur textile city could outsource some of their knitting, dyeing and bleaching units to the Integrated Textile Park getting completed in Kanjikode.
Meanwhile the state government had sanctioned Rs.5 crore for the `modernization and development’ of Kanjikode Industrial Development Area.
The Government has released an amount of Rs.3.5 crore and the remaining 1.5 crore will be shared by the industries of the Development area.
An amount of Rs.4.67 crore will be spent for reconstruction of internal roads, providing side drains, retaining walls and construction of two culverts.
The Kanjikode Industries Forum president K. Pankajakshan told `The Hindu’ here on Sunday that the modernization and development Kanjikode industrial area will go a long way in the overall development of the District and the State as a whole.
He said that the Kanjikode industrial belt is on the path of development.
The Integrated Textile Park coming up in 350 acres of land; the BEML project of Defence coming up in 400 acres of land and the Rail Coach Factory planned in 426 acres of land in Kanjikode will make the area a major industrial centre of the country, he said.
The construction of 110 KV substation at Walayar and the 400 KV sub station at Elappully will solve the power problem of the area so that more industries will be attracted to the area if a right industrial climate is created, he said.
