45th Board of Directors meeting of SmartCity Kochi on Saturday

KOCHI: The 45th Board of Directors meeting of SmartCity Kochi will be held tomorrow at the SmartCity Pavilion, Kakkanad.

The meeting, to be held in the presence of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and chaired by P K Kunjalikutty, Chairman of the Board and Minister for Industries and IT, will take stock of the progress of the first IT building and also preparation for the inauguration of the building, which is nearing completion.

The meeting will also review the status of Phase-1 of the project and projects of the co-developers and other infrastructure developments.

Smartcity Vice Chairman Jaber Bin Hafez, Minister for Excise and Fisheries K Babu,Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson,Dubai based Indian business tycoon M A Yousuf Ali, CEO Baju George, and P H Kurien, Principal Secretary, IT will also attend.

The Chief Minister and officials will visit the site to review the project status prior to board meeting.

Meanwhile, reconstruction of the road from IMG Junction to Edachira and the construction of the four-lane road to Brahmapuram bridge are progressing and as part of preparations for the SmartCity inauguration.

The state government had recently decided to extend stamp duty and registration fee exemption given to IT units and IT developers in Special Economic Zones to co-developers as well, which was the stumbling block that prevented the co-developers of SmartCity to commence their construction.

The four review meetings held under the chairmanship of Jiji Thomson, Chief Secretary has assisted to resolve several pending issues and put the project on a faster mode.