The Hindu Business Line : Will it be red or green?

Will it be yet another instance of a slip between the cup and the lip for Kerala? The much-hyped and equally controversial Smart City project is once again in the throes of uncertainty. The latest twist in the tale comes from the Election Commission's directive that the final agreement for the Smart City, an expansive infrastructure envisaged for IT and BPO firms planned in Kochi, should be deferred in view of the state assembly polls.

In normal cases, deferment of a signing ceremony to post-elections should not create any uncertainty; it is natural that the EC asks incumbent governments to desist from taking any populists measures immediately before the polls to safeguard the model code of conduct for elections. But in the case of Kerala, the EC's directive may virtually seal the fate of Smart City, it is feared.

To understand why, one needs to look at the political situation in the State, now going to polls in the last week of April and early May. The present trend in the State indicates that the present opposition, the Left Democratic Front (LDF), is set to make a sweep at the elections. The local body elections held last year saw LDF trouncing the ruling Congress-led coalition. And what puts question marks on the prospects of Smart City is this very factor: The LDF has been stoutly opposing many terms of the Smart City project.

The Kerala Government was to have signed the project with its promoters, the Dubai Internet City (DIC) in January this year, but it got delayed because the formalities of making the final agreement took time. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had already been signed. The CPI (M)-led Opposition in the State had been opposing many conditions of this MoU, the main one being the decision to hand over an existing IT park in Kochi, the Infopark, to DIC to be included in the Rs 1,500-crore Smart City project.

Many experts now point out that if the LDF assumes power in the state, they are not going to sign on the dotted line. "The LDF is not going to eat their words.

They have opposed giving the Infopark to Smart City project and now they can't simply sign the deal," says Mr S.R. Nair, Managing Director of Kochi-based IT company, Team Frontline.

So in all probability, the new Government is going to review the terms and conditions of the project and there is a likelihood that some changes will happen.

Though nobody is expecting the project to be scrapped — the LDF had made it clear that they were not completely opposing Smart City — it remains to be seen whether DIC would be interested in it with a new set of agreements. But G. Vijaya Raghavan, former CEO of Techopark and IT expert, believes that Smart City will take off, regardless of the election results.

His line of thought is that having made such a lot of groundwork, nobody is going to pull out. He says that if the UDF Government retains power, the deal will be signed in a few weeks after they come to power; if it is LDF, it may take some more months.

"Whether it is UDF or LDF, the project will go on," he says. And even if DIC develops cold feet, Vijaya Raghavan says someone else will surely chip in to set up the project.

In the past, Kerala lost many projects that could have changed the industrial face of the state. German carmaker BMW's Indian assembling unit, now being set up in Tamil Nadu, is one of the more recent misses for Kerala. At a time when IT is booming, Kerala surely needs a facility such as Smart City to meet the growing demand for quality space from software and BPO companies. But in Kerala, business is once again getting mixed with politics, it seems.

vipin@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Infrastructure | Software | Politics | Kerala

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