Ending an embarrassing week of politicking over the controversial land purchase for the proposed Indian Institute of Space Science Technology (IIST) the Kerala government has promised to make land available free of cost to ISRO .

This was the outcome of a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan on Thursday evening with senior government and ISRO officials to clear the mess.

The government,t which lost its face after the project was mishandled by officials, told the ISRO representatives to choose a fresh location and inform the government.

 “They told us they wanted 200 acres of land for IIST in two phases. We have promised to offer them  land free of cost,’’ the chief minister  told mediapersons.

Dr B N Suresh, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Mr Ranganathan, additional secretary in the Space Department and VSSC controller K M Nair were present at the meeting. The government side was also represented. Evading questions on the deal that ISRO had entered into, the chief minister said the Opposition UDF was displaying political opportunism in the Assembly on the issue.

He said it was the UDF which brought in a bill in 2003 liberalising the transfer of ecologically fragile land only to defeat the LDF government’s ordinance in 2000. “This government is committed to implementing land reforms and will continue to do so,” he said.