Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 18 (IANS) Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor Monday said the proposed “twinning” of the Kerala capital and Spain’s Barcelona city was well on track.
A press release issued from Tharoor’s constituency office here said a delegation from Barcelona will arrive here by the end of the month for the final round of discussions.

“A draft of the proposal has already been sent to Thiruvananthapuram Mayor C. Jayan Babu. In February, the international operations director of Barcelona will come. And then the centre has to clear the proposal following which the Mayor of Barcelona Jordi Hereu has to arrive and ink the agreement with his counterpart here,” the release added.

Tharoor, the local MP, had announced this project at a press conference in July last year and as the first step to this a team from Barcelona was here in October last year.

The deal was clinched when Tharoor met the Barcelona officials last week when on a visit to Spain.

“Barcelona will help Thiruvananthapuram by extending research support to the cancer hospital here, help in waste disposal, assist in development of the city as a whole, besides assisting in the overall development of sports and games. This is just the beginning,” Tharoor said, in the release.

Tharoor, a former undersecretary general of the United Nations, contested on a Congress ticket in the April-May Lok Sabha polls and stunned everyone winning by a margin of 99,998 votes, the highest margin by a Congress candidate in the state in recent times.