Panaji: Appealing to the government to complete the Tuem electronic city project on priority basis so that it provides jobs to the Goan youth, former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Wednesday expressed concern that any delay in completion of this electronics system design and manufacturing project could result in the large area earmarked for the project falling prey to the land sharks.
Tuem electronic city was the flagship project of the Parsekar government and was supposed to come up over 5.97 lakh sq mts of land at a cost of Rs 161.3 crore.
Speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’, Parsekar said the failure of the government, the department of Information technology and the local public representative to push this project forward and provide basic infrastructure such as water, power and access road for the project, would pass on wrong signals to the investors and keep them away from the electronic city.
The greenfield electronics manufacturing cluster project at Tuem has presently hit a roadblock, as the government has not received suitable response from investors for the project, even after inviting applications for plots in the electronic city.
The Parsekar government had tendered setting up of a 220/ 33 KV EHV power substation at the site of the particular project. However, discarding the L1 bidder, the government has now re-tendered the work.
Furthermore, the 10-MLD water treatment plant proposed at the site is yet to see the light of the day.
Parsekar also informed that the four-lane road from the site to the Tuem village is complete. However, the 1.2-km road connecting the Tuem village to the national highway-66 is yet to be constructed.
The former chief minister said that he, for the particular project had acquired Alvara-Aframento lands located adjacent to each other on the Tuem plateau, and which were handed over to local farmers by the government during late 1960s, for cultivation.
“This land was reverted to the government during the 1970s as the farmers, as per the condition laid down, did not cultivate anything on this land,” he said, informing that the land however erroneously remained in their name till his government came to power in 2014.
Pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself laid the foundation stone of the Tuem electronic city along with that for the Mopa greenfield international project, Parsekar said the Union ministry of electronics and information technology had sanctioned grant-in-aid for the Tuem project.
The central ministry has sanctioned grant-in-aid of Rs 73.8 crore for the project and released its first installment of Rs 12.4 crore, which is 16.85 per cent of the total sum.
On a parting note, Parsekar observed that the Tuem electronic city, the proposed IT Park at Chimbel and the planned IT Habitat at Penha de Franca, if completed would take care of all job requirements of Goans, especially the Tuem project, which is mainly dedicated to assembly line electronics.