Prime minister A B Vajpayee on Saturday announced that the Centre will invest Rs 10,000 crore in several public sector projects in Kerala over the next few years and all hurdles for setting up the much-awaited Rs 2,000 crore Vallarpadam International Container Terminal would be removed and the work on it would start within the next few months.
Vajpayee, who was speaking after inaugurating the two-day Global Investors Meet organised by the Kerala government, said the proposed investments would be in projects involving capacity expansion of the NTPC's power station at Kayamkulam, upgrading the Bharat Petroleum Corporation's Kochi Refinery Ltd (KRL), and mineral exploration jointly by National Mineral Development Corporation and Indian Rare Earths Ltd in Chavara.
While the KRL expansion and modernisation plan envisages an investment of Rs 2,600 crore to be made in a phases over 10 years, the NMDC and IRE joint venture would involve an investment of Rs 1,500 crore.
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The KRL upgradation also includes setting up of single buoy mooring (SBM) facility at a cost of Rs 700 crore at Mankodam, near Cherthala in Alappuzha district.
Maintaining that Kerala also has the potential to absorb huge private and foreign investments in various sectors already identified by the state government, Vajpayee urged investors to take a close look at the opportunities and firm up their investment plans.
Assuring all support and assistance from the Central government, he said that the NDA government's track-record so far testifies to the fact that it has never allowed political considerations to influence its dealings with any state.
Maintaining that Kerala should look ahead and not remain trapped in outdated dogmas and sterile ideological debates, Vajpayee hoped that events like GIM would help accelerate economic and industrial growth in the state and enable it to make up for the lost time.
Chief minister A K Antony reiterated the state's resolve to solicit global investment and assured the investors that his government "will institute a fast track system to process your expressions of interest. The necessary approvals would be accorded to the viable projects in a time-bound manner."
He emphasised that a series of policies in the fields of IT, labour, tourism, etc had been framed to make Kerala more investor-friendly.