KOCHI: The ghost of financial crisis faced by the promoters of Smart City Kochi still seems to haunt the project. The promoters could not take any measure to start the project which had been revived after sorting out the differences with the Tecom and the LDF Government six months ago.Though the Tecom authorities went to Mumbai a few days ago and approached some major private financial enterprises for securing loans for starting the project, the mission is learnt to have borne no fruit, sources said. The fact that the Tecom went for financial aid even at the very beginning of the project shows the depth of financial crisis being faced by them.Now, the promoters of the project are learnt to be using a row with the KSEB as a cover for the delay. Recently, the KSEB had resumed the construction of towers for high power supply line being established to transmit electricity from the Central Power Grid at Pallikkara to Brahmapuram. The towers are being erected in the land handed over to the Smart City project.It was in February this year that a fresh lease agreement for the Rs 1700 -crore Smart City Kochi project had been signed between the Tecom and the state government. The project, the foundation stone of which was laid in November 2007, envisages direct employment for 90,000 persons. The project remained caught in controversy following differences over the issue of 12 per cent free-hold land right till February 2011, when the deadlock was broken.The Tecom had then declared that the construction of the project would start soon. They had even started headcount for the project. But nothing concrete has happened so far.
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