The Hindu Business Line : Kerala to go ahead with Spices Park

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 11 The Kerala Government will go ahead with the Spices Park project and the process of land acquisition for the project has already commenced, the Industries Minister, Mr Elamaram Kareem, said.

He told newspersons here on Tuesday that a statement by the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, had given the impression that the Spices Park was a central project and that the State would lose it because of the delay in land acquisition.

But the project had been conceived by the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra), for which the Spices Board had offered assistance.

The Minister said the proposal was discussed with Mr Ramesh in Delhi in January this year and he had agreed to form a joint venture company with equal equity participation of Kinfra and the Spices Board for developing the infrastructure for the park. Subsequently, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Kinfra and the Spices Board on February 13 at Idukki.

Industrial parks

Mr Kareem said that the Spices Park was among a slew of industrial parks planned to be established by the State Government. These included a food park in Wayanad and knowledge park in Kozhikode. The Government had also identified land for these projects.

In the case of Spices Park, a committee was formed on February 21 with representatives of the Spices Board and industrialists, apart from the local MLA and the District Collector, to identify the land for the project that was acceptable to prospective investors.

The committee proposed two sites in Idukki district; one at Nedumkandam for collection and semi-processing of spices and the other at Thodupuzha for final processing and value-addition.

These sites were identified as the investors wanted the project to be closer to the commercial centre in Kochi and the port.

The committee had recommended acquisition of 100 acres of land each at Nedumkandam and Thodupuzha to set up the park.

Delayed acquisition

However, the operation for eviction of encroached land in Idukki district had delayed the acquisition of land for the park. A meeting of Revenue and Industries Ministers on December 5 had decided to expedite the acquisition of land and the process was progressing accordingly, Mr Kareem said.

The decision to set up the park was taken by the State Government and it was not a central project. The Government was committed to it and the project would materialise soon, he added.

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