Ansal, Uttam Steel lose licence to build townships

The Mayawati government has cancelled the licence given to two companies for developing high-tech townships in Lucknow and Dadri with immediate effect.

The companies are Ansal Properties Ltd and the Uttam Steel Associates Consortium. They were given the licence under the "High Tech Township Policy", announced by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 2005.

The proposal to cancel the licences was approved by the UP Cabinet today. This has been done on the recommendations of the committee headed by the Industrial Development Commissioner to review the allotments made under the old policy. The committee was set up by the Mayawati government.

Ansal was given the licence for developing a high-tech township on 1,700 acres on the Lucknow-Sultanpur highway while Uttam Steel got the licence for developing a township in Dadri, now part of Greater Noida.

The land proposed to be developed by Ansals had been acquired by the state-run UP State Housing and Development Board. Later the previous government exempted the land from the acquisition and allotted it to the Ansals.

Seven proposals for developing high-tech townships were received by the government. The cabinet has also decided to reject any proposal under consideration of the housing department received under the old policy. The Mayawati government has already scrapped the High tech township policy unveiled by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 2005.

The cabinet secretary Sashank Shekhar Singh said that the Dadri was not part of Greater NOIDA at the time of issue of license to Uttam Steels. Later it was included in Greater NOIDA so it is now covered by the NCR region. With this the land use of the land to be used by Uttam Steels is not in conformity with the NCR Master Plan of 2021.

The proposed land for the township to be developed by Uttar Steel is located in Phase-II of Greater NOIDA. Moreover, the old policy stated that the license for the high tech township would be given any where in the state except in NOIDA and Greater NOIDA.

Mayawati government soon after taking over as CM on May 13 last had set up a committee headed by the Industrial Development Commissioner Atul Gupta, to review the policy and suggest changes to make it more peoples oriented. The committee received 16 complaints against the developers who were given license for developing the high tech townships in the state.

The committee in its report to the cabinet said the developers had not submitted any financing plan for funding the high tech township project. Moreover the reality companies under the cover of pre launching mopped up huge funds from the common people without having the actual possession of the land and transfer of title of the land in their favour.

The money collected by the reality companies was totally unsecured, the report added.

The Committee also questioned the justification of exemption of land from acquisition and allotment of the same to the private developer. The state government is likely to announce soon new high-tech township, policy based on the recommendations of the committee.