It will contribute to developing manufacturing industries
The Central government has decided to extend the Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridor to Kochi.
The decision to extend the corridor to Kochi via Coimbatore was conveyed to the State government by the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT) on Wednesday, the Chief Minister’s office said.
Earlier, when the National Industrial Corridor was extended to various States, Kerala had not figured in the map. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan then consistently pursued the issue and mounted pressure on the Centre till securing a positive decision.
Establishment of the corridor will substantially contribute to developing manufacturing industries in the region and transform the Kochi-Palakkad region into a major manufacturing hub of South India. Once established, the industrial activity will be dispersed to other regions of the State, with forward and backward linkages.
Two integrated manufacturing clusters would be developed, one in Palakkad and the other at Salem in Tamil Nadu.
The natural gas infrastructure will play considerable role for various applications, including power generation, heating and cooling in various industries and process requirement in industrial units.
The project will initiate a trend of reverse migration, attracting the young manpower from the State resorting to various manufacturing activities, including high-end engineering works within the State. The project is expected to trigger the overall economic growth of the State and its employment generation on a sustainable mode.
Earlier, NICDIT had insisted on providing 2,000 acres to 5,000 acres of land for setting up the integrated manufacturing clusters. But the State government had informed the Centre of the problems in securing such huge tracts of land and it conceded to scale it down to 1,800 acres. This land has been identified in Palakkad, Kannambra, Uzhalapathy, and Puthussery. A major tract of the land is already in the possession of Kinfra.
The Centre and the State government would jointly form a special purpose vehicle for managing the clusters. Cost of the land would be the State’s share in the company. The Centre would expend ₹870 crore for the project. The cluster in Kerala would be located on either sides of the Kochi-Salem National Highway. This would comprise electronics, food processing, agro-based units, IT and traditional industries too. This is expected to provide 10,000 jobs.