ALAPPUZHA: The Kerala High Court has ordered promoters of Haripad Medical College to return Rs 30 lakh to an NRI investor within a month as the project failed to take off. Harikumar of Ambala-ppuzha had paid the amount in two instalments in 2012, and he moved the court after the government closed down the office of the public-private partnership (PPP) project in Kottayam recently. The court issued the order after the government pleader could not make its status clear. This is the first of 25 shareholders to pull out.
“The court had rapped the government lawyer for buying time twice and not providing a clear answer on its future,” said a source close to the investor. Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala who initiated it while he was a minister, had been maintaining that it received no investment, 25 people were willing to invest. “Four years after its announcement, nobody showed interest. Only 12 of 27 acres required were acquired spending Rs 12.5 crore from Rs 15 crore sanctioned,” he had said in June last year. The Rs 500-crore campus was to complete in five years with the NABARD assistance.
The then chief minister, Oommen Chandy, laid its foundation stone on May 12, 2015, but the LDF that succeeded decided to pull out of the PPP project. Dr P.G.R. Pillai whom the UDF government appointed as its special officer told DC that the court order would be followed at the earliest. “I haven’t got the order so far. The government pleader told me about it. The amount is in the treasury. So we will take steps to refund once the order is received," he said. The source said the investor was planning to move contempt of court if he didn't get the money back within a month. "We don’t think the project will happen," he said.
