Fresh lease of life for electronics park.

The long-pending electronics hardware park proposed at Amballoor is among the mega projects to benefit from the ₹1,552-crore allocation made in the State Budget.

Anoop Jacob, MLA, said it was not clear how much money would be allocated to the project out of the financial package. Amballoor falls within his constituency, Piravom.

“Land acquisition will require about ₹300 crore. The plan is to acquire 100 acres initially out of the proposed 300 acres. So far, only 15 acres have been acquired,” said Mr. Jacob. The previous government had allocated ₹15 crore for land acquisition.

Ever since it was conceived almost a decade ago, the ₹750-crore project has run into one stumbling block after another. At one point, the project was almost moved out of Amballoor after the 340 acres of land initially identified was found to be a Ramsar site by the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM). The proposed world class park was estimated to draw investment to the tune of ₹650 crore through manufacturing and assembling of electronic equipment ranging from television, refrigerator, washing machine, computer to mobile handsets and by attracting companies in the semiconductor and electronic components sector.

The 45-MLD (million litres per day) industrial water project proposed by Kinfra at an investment of ₹62 crore at its industrial park at Kalamassery found mention in the Budget though there was no allocation per se.

According to the Budget, a detailed project report for the proposed Petro Chemical Park will be submitted to the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board shortly. The project, to be executed in a phased manner, involves an investment of ₹1,800 crore with ₹1,200 crore needed for land alone.

THE HINDU