Private Firms Reap Rich Benefits as AP Govt Allots Costly Land for Peanuts

The World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City, USA, was spread over a total of 16 acres. It included the iconic Twin Towers along with many other buildings. It is well known that the Twin Towers collapsed in the terrorist attacks carried out using airplanes on September 11, 2001. While the world-famous American World Trade Center was spread across just sixteen acres, now the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to allot 30 acres—worth hundreds of crores of rupees—in Endada, Vizag, for a World Trade Center project. The state cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday, decided to allocate this land at the rate of ₹1.5 crore per acre. In reality, the minimum market value of land here is said to be above ₹30 crores per acre. But the government has decided to allot it to BVM Energy & Residency at just ₹1.5 crore per acre.

                                        This company claims it will develop a World Trade Center here with an investment of ₹1,250 crores and provide employment to fifteen thousand people. It is part of the Kapil Group. However, eyebrows are being raised over the decision to allot as much as 30 acres in a city like Vizag under the name of the World Trade Center to this company. In Beijing, China—the world’s second-largest economy—the World Trade Center occupies 43 acres. But in Vizag, such a large extent of land is being allotted all at once—and that too to a company that has little track record in implementing such mega projects—raising suspicions of irregularities. In addition, the Andhra Pradesh cabinet has also given the green signal to allot 30 acres of land to Bangalore-based Sattva Developers in the Madhurawada IT Hill area of Vizag, at the same rate of ₹1.5 crore per acre. This too appears to be a similar case. Sattva is a company involved in real estate, IT space, and infrastructure for various industries. The government has also decided to allot this land at a throwaway price.

                                                              What’s appalling here is that government lands worth hundreds of crores are being offered at rock-bottom prices to private companies, significantly benefiting certain industrialists. The allocation of 30 acres each to the World Trade Center project and to Sattva in Vizag is being seen by officials as completely unjustified. On one hand, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Minister Nara Lokesh are boasting that these moves will bring investments and create job opportunities in the state. But the actual necessity and the scale of these land allocations suggest that something fishy is going on behind the scenes, even a senior IAS officer opined. Officials say that, under the pretext of investments and employment generation, the Andhra Pradesh government has been arbitrarily allocating lands to private entities beyond actual requirements for quite some time now.