Kochi: Not even 10 per cent of the Rs 4,000 crore investment Inkel, a private company with minority shareholding by the State government, had promised four years ago, has materialised, it is revealed. Worse, many of the projects it had listed never reached even the planning stage.
Then additional chief secretary (industries) T Balakrishnan had issued an order on October 27, 2011 stating that Inkel (Infrastructure Kerala Limited) would undertake 14 projects which “will bring in an investment of Rs 4,000 crore into the State and would have sizeable impact on the economy of the State.” It had said the projects would start in one year and will be completed in four years.
Mr Balakrishnan had retired from the service the next month and soon took over as Inkel managing director.
Enquiries revealed that 11 of the 14 projects it had announced in 2011 have not taken off. Two projects for which it got government land for a song have commenced.
It completed only one project, the container freight station at Vallarpadam, in association with a private company with an investment of Rs 60 crore.
The Olympic Tower in Thiruvananthapuram, first of the 14 projects Mr Balakrishnan listed, never took off. According to Mr Abdul Rahiman, president of the Kerala Olympic Association with which Inkel was to build a 38,000 sq ft commercial-cum-office complex, said there has been no concrete proposal from Inkel on the project. “We have not even had a preliminary discussion on the project,” he told DC.
Development of Beypore port, another import project on the list, also did not materialise. “The State government is undertaking a development project for Beypore as part of the coastal shipping project,” Mr Abraham V Kuriakose, Port Officer, said.
“As of now, we have no tie-up with Inkel.” Inkel has completed a container freight station at Vallarpadam.
It has also built a 2-lakh sq ft standard design factory at Angamaly on a land it got on lease from KSIDC. Inkel sources admitted it has not been able to sell even 10 per cent of the land in its Educity project in Malappuram.
Mr Balakrishnan’s order had also said the given the impact the project will have on the State’s economy, the chief secretary would monitor their progress on a monthly basis.
A former chief secretary who refused to be quoted when contacted said he indeed monitored the feasibility and progress of the project once or twice.
“I did not find them either feasible or making a progress,” he said. Present incumbent E K Bharat Bhushan said he never had gone for such an exercise.
