THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief minister Oommen Chandy on Monday said that there was something mysterious in the way the LDF had been going against the Vizhinjam International Seaport project.
"The existing terms are far more favourable to the state than the ones introduced during the LDF tenure," the chief minister said in a statement here.
Chandy said it was strange that the LDF was complaining that under the present arrangement, the state government would start getting revenue from the port only after 19 years. "As per their arrangement, the state would have received revenue only after 30 years," he said.
"The fact is, under the terms that the UDF government had negotiated, the state would start getting revenue from the seventh year onwards.”
And that's not all.
"There is a clause that from the 15th year, the state would get 40 per cent of the revenue with an increase of one per cent every year thereafter," the chief minister said.
Unlike the LDF government, which according to Chandy had neither discussed nor published the agreement with International Finance Corporation, the UDF government had put up all details related to the project on the website. He said that the government was willing to discuss all issues during the all-party meeting scheduled for June 3.
He also countered the charge that he had met secretly with Adani. "The discussions I had with Adani in Delhi were no secret. The ports minister, the Planning Board vice-chairman, the chief secretary, ports secretary and the Delhi resident commissioner were with me," he said. Mr Chandy said that he had even talked to all three companies that had qualified the pre-bid process and requested them to submit their tenders.
He also dismissed charges that there was corruption of Rs 6,000 crore as part of the land acquisition. "The government had taken over 206 acres at market price for the project. And for this, we have shelled out only Rs 536 crore," the chief minister said. "How can there be a corruption of Rs 6,000 crore when the total project cost is only Rs 7,525 crore," he asked.
