By IANS
Kozhikode : Businesspeople would be discouraged to invest in Kerala due to raging controversies over industrial projects, a minister of the state, who is at the centre of a row over sale of government land to a private firm in Kochi, said here Thursday.
“Those who like to invest in a project won’t wait for the end of the controversies here to go ahead with their plan,” Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem said at a veterinary hospital’s inauguration here.
Kareeem was indirectly referring to the raging controversy over the transfer of 70 acres of land by the public sector Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) in Kochi to Mumbai-based Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) for its Cyber City project.
The state government had given the land free of cost to HMT.
“You can’t start industry on top of coconut palms. To set up industry, land is needed,” he added.
“Kerala, in total, has got around nine million acres of land and we are not using even half a percent of this for industrial purposes. Total land acquired for the industry in the state is around 25,000 acres and most of this land remains unused,” Kareem said.
“The government is not engaged in real estate business. Nobody can build apartments in the land allotted for industrial purposes. Therefore, the land allotted exclusively for industrial purposes will not command the price of land in residential areas,” the minister added.
There are allegations that the land for the Cyber City project was sold much below market rate.