Hyderabad-based SJK Powergen Ltd is unhappy with the MP government. The company has said that its 1,200 Mw power project (Rs 5,000 crore) has been jeopardised by it. The company had signed a deal with the state government at an investors’ meet.
The firm has been denied a government land area of more than 250 acres. This was after it had acquired a private land area of 300 acres in Lalpur village of Shahdol district.
The land area of approximately 250 acres is in close proximity with the private land. So now if the company has to set up a power plant, it will have to identify another location and will have to lose the amount which it had paid for the 300 acres.
“We had asked for 1,000 acres. First, we had been asked to acquire the private land, later they (government officials) told us to cut the demand. We reduced it to 550 acres and made payments against the privately acquired land, and now the state government officials are not cooperating in allotting the government land area. They have delayed our project,” a company source told Business Standard.
Meanwhile, government officials have a different tale to tell. “The land identified by the company is forest land and it cannot be allotted for a thermal power station. They will have to identify a different location,” Chief Secretary Rakesh Sahni said.
He said, “The companies, before making plans, do not investigate about the land and take decisions. It creates a problem at a later stage.”
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A company source said, “According to government records, we have seen, the land is not forest land but revenue land. And when a ‘single window’ or ‘single table’ system is there in the state, why did the district collector not object while we were filing applications? They signed the deal and assured support; but now they are refusing us land when we moved ahead and have made investment in the private land.”
The company has plans to set up two thermal power units of 660 Mw each. The first unit was planned to be set up by 2011. This is not the first time that a power company’s proposal has been turned down by the state. A number of companies have been barred from making investment earlier also.
The state revenue department does not have a land bank or computerised records of land. More importantly, there is a long channel of state revenue officials who hardly respond to investors, while an investor has to contact each channel to acquire land. A number of investment proposals are either running into rough weather or investors have pulled out of the state.
The nodal agency, MP Trade and Investment Facilitation Corporation, has no legal powers to demand records and details of land despite it functioning as a ‘single table’ for extending support on land, water and mining.