Thiruvananthapuram, July 2 (PTI) Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala on Thursday alleged that the London-based company, which has been awarded consultancy of the Kerala government's e-mobility project, was all set to open an officeinside the state secretariat here.

The opposition Congress is up in arms against the decision of the Left government to award the consultancy to PriceWaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd for the logistics ports of the electric vehicle production ecosystem in the state.

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Speaking to reporters here, the Leader of Opposition said, "The foreign firm is all set to open its office inside the state secretariatitself."

"The only delay is in obtaining the signature of the Transport Minister. Four officials who will be functioning inside the secretariat will draw a salary more than that of the Chief Secretary of the state," he claimed.

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Chennithala reiterated his charge that Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had held investigations into the allegations against the company and banned it from operating in India for two years in 2018.

"The state government is planning to give backdoor entry to the company," he said.

Earlier, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had denied the allegations by Chennithala and said PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd was not banned by SEBI.

The ban is on Pricewaterhouse Company, an auditing firm, which is entirely a different legal entity, he had said.

The government's Electric Vehicle policy envisages one million vehicles on the road by 2022.

By 2020, 2 lakh two wheelers, 50,000 three wheelers, 1,000 goods carriers and 3,000 buses would be on the roads.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)