THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even though more than 1.5 years have passed since Technopark, Taurus Investment Holdings and THR India Ventures signed a tripartite agreement, there is no significant progress in the construction of Taurus Downtown Technopark project, a major project that aims to provide social infrastructure for Technopark. This has resulted in speculations about the status of the project, especially considering the fact that two other malls are coming in the area within two years.
However, authorities of Taurus clarified that it was just procedural delay and the project is right on track.
As per the framework agreement for the project signed in September 2015, land had to be leased to SPV within 60 days after signing the agreement, provided land is available free of encumbrance. However, sources said that land was made available only by June, 2016. As per the agreement, if the lease agreement was signed before March 2016, one-time lease premium will have to be Rs 2.74 crore per acre for the 10-acre SEZ Land. The price of the 9.73 acres of non-SEZ land was proposed as Rs 5 crore per acre. The land will be leased to Taurus for 90 years. Since two financial years have passed after the signing of MoU, the company will have to pay escalated cost at 15% for each year.
Technopark CEO Hrishikesh Nair said that several deadlines - the last one in March - for paying the lease amount has passed. He, however, added that the company is frequently in touch with him and Taurus representatives are expected to come on April 24.
Country managing director of Taurus Ajay Prasad said that they are trying to complete the lease formalities at the earliest and will commence works soon after. "Being an investor that places a lot of emphasis on transparency and risk mitigation, our project execution typically takes longer in the preparation stage than for local developers, but usually yields a much better final outcome," he said in an email reply to a questionnaire.
"Issues pertaining to land availability were sorted out only by the end of June 2016. Since then we have been working on our India investment platform, which brings together both private and institutional investors from the US, Germany, Ireland and other countries. The many formalities involved in setting up the investment structure and getting due permissions from authorities in India and other jurisdictions have taken much longer than we expected, and this has also contributed to the delay," Prasad said, adding that they would soon announce general contractor for the Rs 1,200 crore civil contract, one of the single largest building contracts in the country.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com