Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala’s next big infrastructure project, the Kochi Metro Rail project, has come under a cloud with doubts emerging about whether the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which was originally expected to carry out the project, would be associated with it.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation for the project with much fanfare in September when he was in Kochi to inaugurate the Emerging Kerala investment meet. Hardly a month later, there is a lack of clarity over whether or not the DMRC will be part of the venture. At a board of directors meeting of the Kochi Metro Rail company on Friday, no clear picture emerged about DMRC’s participation in the project.
Fresh doubts about the Kochi project were raised when DMRC chairman Sudhir Krishna said DMRC required prior permission to take up projects outside Delhi. His statement means that a decision on whether or not DMRC will participate in the Kochi project will hinge on the decisions taken at the next board meeting of the DMRC.
Opposition leader V.S. Achuthanandan alleged today (Saturday) that the federal and state governments were playing hide-and-seek in the case of Kochi Metro, and that their game plan was to sideline DMRC and its former chief E. Sreedharan in the Kochi project.
Achuthanandan said he now felt vindicated in not attending the foundation stone laying of the project last month when the prime minister was in Kochi.
