INKEL in talks to bring Rs 1,000 crore investment for mega park

KOCHI: INKEL Limited today said it has initiated talks to bring an investment of Rs 1,000 crore from large industrial houses and educational institutions to its mega park, being promoted jointly with Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC).

The move is aimed at developing Kerala as an educational and industrial hub, said INKEL, an innovative Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative which brings together government agencies and prominent global investors and NRI industrialists and businessmen.

Discussions are on with major industrial houses, and the PPP initiative will invest an additional Rs 50 crore at its park 'INKEL GREENS' in Panakkad, Malappuram district to ready it for the companies to move in, according to a release issued here today.

"We are targeting Rs 1,000-crore investment; discussions are on with other major companies and educational institutions for setting up their facilities at the park spread across 168 acres of land. We have set 2018 as deadline year to achieve the target," said INKEL Managing Director T Balakrishnan.

"We have so far invested Rs 20 crore for developing infrastructure facilities and an additional Rs 50 crore will be made for allied infrastructure and support facilities," he added.

The 2007-established PPP initiative INKEL has been developing Inkel Greens with an industrial zone called 'SME Park' and an educational zone called 'Edu City'.

While 17 companies have already lined up an investment of Rs 80 crore in the SME Park, six major educational groups have started to set up their institutions at the Edu City with an investment of 50 crore.

Balakrishnan said pacts have already been signed with companies like MES Group, Atlas Ideal, Fayeda Group, SSG Group, VKC Elastomers, Capstone Ventures, KMCC, Rafmoh Gold and Ajfan Foods, Duratec, Samastha etc and many of them have started construction activities.

"By 2017, we expect the SME Park alone to generate employment to 1,400 people," he added.