Kochi Economic CIty

The Kochi Economic City project is a prestigious one which was declared in 2019-2020 budget of Govt. of Kerala and GCDA was entrusted to take up the project. The proposal was to develop Satellite Townships connecting Municipalities and Panchayaths within the Jurisdictional area of GCDA. Accordingly, a preliminary report was prepared with the aid of nearby engineering colleges and submitted to Government. Thereafter a meeting was conducted on 3/12/2019 with LSGD Minister and a concept presentation was done by GCDA officials and Government ordered to take further necessary steps for submitting a detailed plan for the successful implementation of project. As per the instruction from the Govt. GCDA collaborated with Dept. of Architecture & Planning of Govt. Engineering College, Thrissur, and entrusted them to do preliminary socio-economic survey and land use survey.

Initially ten sites were identified and after the first round of elimination based on various aspects like location, future urban growth direction, availability of land etc. selected four sites for detailed study. Later a set of 24 parameter were identified for ranking of these four sites. Then, conducted a site inspection and put scores for these parameters and ranked these sites. Consequently, the site abutting NH-544 near Athani spreading over an area of 1100 acres of land in Nedumbassery and Chengamanadu village was selected as the project site.

Govt. Engineering College was decided to conduct the socio-economic survey and landuse survey between March 15 and March 30, 2020. But due to the covid-19 pandemic and imposing of lockdown by the Government thereafter, the survey works could not take place.

Later it came to know form the printed media that, Government of Kerala has accorded Administrative Sanction to develop a Global Industrial Finance and Trade (GIFT) city spreading over an area of 220 Ha nearby Aluva along the NH and allocated Rs. 540 crore for land acquisition. The project is initiated as part of the Kochi-Bengaluru Industrial corridor and the Rs. 1600 Crore project has already been approved by National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT).

It was realised that, the aims and objectives of GIFT city is similar to that of KEC project proposed by GCDA. In this context, the policy decisions are required to reorganise the aims and objectives of the project.