Kochi: Kerala’s original ‘dream project,’ Smart City Kochi, has got another deadline for launch. Almost. Chief secretary Jiji Thomson said here on Friday that the first phase of the project would be launched by August-end or early September.
“We have identified certain areas where work needs to be taken up on a reverse engineering mode to meet the deadline and allocated responsibility to the departments concerned,” he told reporters after a review of the project with representatives of about 20 government departments and officials of Tecom, which is building the project.
Smart City Kochi managing director Baju George was, however, non-committal on the date.
“I can give an exact date once our meeting with the top officials of the project management consultancy on July 21 is over,” Mr George later told reporters.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had said in December after a meeting of the Smart City board of directors that the work on the first phase would be completed in March this year and would be inaugurated before June.
When asked about the deadline slipping, Smart City officials had said the project would be opened in July after Eid. The first phase of the project comprises 6.5 lakh sq ft of built-up space of which 70 per cent will be earmarked for information technology and related industries.
Mr Thomson said there was a lack of monitoring on the part of the government in certain aspects of the project. “Issues related to encroachment of land, including those by arms of the government, and payment of lease rent could have been sorted out earlier,” he said.
“There was confusion among government officials, too,” he noted. Mr Baju George also said there were issues that slowed down the project. “After I took over on June 24, we have reworked the plan. Today, 1081 people are working on the project, which is double the earlier number,” he said.
After the review meet, the chief secretary, along with principal secretary (industries and IT) P.H. Kurian and PWD secretary A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish visited the project site.
