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Jaya bungles on Fab City chance

Maran says she did not respond to his letter on the Rs 15,000 crore IT project; promoters choose Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as possible sites; she is now desperately trying to placate the delegation

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Maran says she did not respond to his letter on the Rs 15,000 crore IT project; promoters choose Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as possible sites; she is now desperately trying to placate the delegation
 
CHENNAI: The big fight for the Rs 15,000-crore Fab City, the biggest IT project in the country, is getting interesting. While the promoters are believed to have narrowed down their choice to Bangalore or Hyderabad a couple of days ago, Tamil Nadu appears to have woken up, albeit late.
 
By Friday morning, the fight for Fab was clearly between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. After noon, chief minister J Jayalalithaa's office sent out signals to call back the Fab City delegation, which visited her last Monday. Fab City is projected to generate up to 30,000 jobs, besides cementing India's place in the global IT industry.
 
From a list of five locations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Noida and Kolkata, the special task force constituted by the Prime Minister's Office and the promoters had shortlisted just two of the cities. "It could be a location anywhere between Bangalore and Mysore in Karnataka or Hyderabad. A final decision is expected by the second week of January, after a technical team visits the proposed locations," a highly placed source told DNA on Friday morning.
 
By Friday afternoon, when Union IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, who is keen on bringing Fab City to Chennai was in his home town to receive Bill Gates, the state government went into troubleshooting. "The state government is keen on calling back the delegation," a source told DNA.
 
When contacted, chief secretary N Narayanan said: "I was with the chief minister when the delegation met her. We are still in the process of working out the details."
 
Earlier, Noida and Kolkata were discarded from the list of probables because the team felt the southern cities were better suited for IT clusters that are bound to expand. While Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been competing with each other, offering land, power, water and incentives for the project, the TN government's response did not go down well with the promoters. "Jayalalithaa bluntly told the delegation that she cannot give free land. 'Just because it is raining here, don't think that I can provide uninterrupted water supply,' she told the delegation," an insider said. Meanwhile, the ego clash between Jayalalithaa and Maran continues. "I wrote to chief ministers of five states. While everyone replied with details of the facilities they could offer, Jayalalithaa preferred not to respond. This is not good for Tamil Nadu," Maran told DNA.
 
As Jayalalithaa plans to placate the Fab delegation, things could get more curious.
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