Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 10 (IANS) Making clear that he wants the state’s development process on fast track, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has appointed E. Sreedharan and Tarun Das in the newly re-constituted planning board.

This is the first time that the state planning board will be having members who have excelled in their areas but are based outside the state.

“These names were recommended by vice-chairman of the board K.M. Chandrasekharan (who himself is a recently retired cabinet secretary), and moreover these people are experts in their own way,” Chandy told reporters here after the weekly cabinet meeting.

While Sreedharan (Delhi Metro chief) has been roped in at a time when Kerala is poised to launch the Kochi Metro Rail project that is expected to get the green signal from the centre next month, Das is former head of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

G. Vijayaraghavan, the first CEO of Technopark here, has also been included in the board.

“We are also discussing a few more names and very soon that also would be announced,” added Chandy.

Chandy as chief minister is chairman of the planning board.

The cabinet also decided to hold an investor meet at Kochi early next year. “We have decided to hold a similar meet as the Global Investor Meet which we held in our last tenure (2004) and we have named it as ‘Emerging Kerala 2012′. It is basically meant to seek investment in our state. A high level committee will oversee the event,” said Chandy.