The district administration is virtually throwing its hands up over a call to identify 5,000 hectares of land along the national highway in the city, or near the port, for a central-sponsored, job-oriented manufacturing zone.
The call to the administration came last week from the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC), the nodal agency for the Kochi-Coimbatore industrial corridor project, which would implement the plan under the National Investment Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ).
Sources at the district administration said it was unlikely to identify such a vast stretch of land in the city. The zone is being proposed under the national manufacturing policy of the central government.
“We have asked the district authority to identify land that has easy access and topography suited to establish the industrial park in the district, as per the central policy,” said a top KSIDC official.
The policy was introduced by the Centre with a view to creating more jobs and increasing the share of manufacturing in country's gross domestic product to 25 per cent by the coming decade.
KSIDC sources said, “We are considering a range of products covering seafood, IT, rubber and tyre and wood.” The first phase of the NIMZ, to be set up along the Kochi-Coimbatore corridor, will come up as and when the required land is provided by the state government. “We will soon be informing KSIDC of our inability,” a senior official in the land acquisition department said.