 "India's first auto proving ground proves to be a white elephant")
The much-awaited India's first digital auto proving ground at Pithampur (Indore) has proven to be a white elephant for the state government. Originally conceptualised in August 2005 as one of the ambitious projects to provide world class testing facility to the automobile industry, it is yet to see the light of the day even after a decade. A nodal agency NATRIP was formed to complete the Pithampur project named as NATRAX.
The NATRAX was planned as a globally comparable facility for regulatory tests relating to brakes, performance, electromagnetic interference, steering performance, noise, speedometer calibration, maximum speed, gradeability, fuel consumption, air bag testing and anti-lock braking system testing.
Indore-Pithampur region is already known as 'Detroit of Asia' for its automobile and auto component manufacturing facilities with biggies like Force Motors and Eicher.
Six projects were planned in the country, of them one was proposed in Pithampur (near Indore). Now the Pithampur project is already five years late of its scheduled completion. Several land owners have obtained renewed and enhanced award against their land. State government has challenged these awards and compensation amount in Supreme Court but it expressed its apprehension in a meeting of committee appointed by Union Ministry of Heavy Industry that "if not reversed by Supreme court it would result in liability of around Rs 3,000 crore".
The High Court had recently issued directives to repay enhanced compensation to farmers it would have shell out a whopping amount of Rs 1,330 crore.
The state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in June this year had written a letter to Union heavy industry minister Anant Geete and urged him to give back 1,125 acres of land from the total allocated land of 1,669 hectares or 4,143 acres to the project. Of the total outlay of Rs 1,718 crore, NATRAX was planned to be developed with an investment of Rs 450 crore. The project is envisaged to attract further investment from auto industry and create at least 700 direct jobs. The main attraction of the project was a high-speed vehicle testing track, testing labs and a workshop-auditorium.
"Union Heavy Industry Ministry had constituted a committee to look into the enhanced compensation package towards land acquisition for NATRAX projected. The committee had forwarded a proposal for handing over unutilised 1125 acres of land back to the state government for Union cabinet approval," a senior official at NATRAX told BS.
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The state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had written a letter to Union Heavy Industry Minister Anant Geete seeking return of 455 hectare or 1,125 acres of land. In his letter the chief minister urged the Union government to speed up the process.
Besides Indore, Chennai, Manesar, Silchar, Arai, Rae Bareli and Ahmednagar had been chosen for various testing facilities across India.
The meeting of the committee in January this year had observed that the entire NATRIP project cost was Rs 1,718 crore which included Rs 621.28 crore for NATRAX Pithampur in 2005.
However this cost did not include land cost as Madhya Pradesh government had made it available for just Rs 100 on yearly lease basis of Rs 100. Now the all seven projects have reached Rs 3,827.30 crore.
"If we lose the cases in Supreme Court filed against high compensation demanded by land owners, it would become a big liability on state government. If they (NATRAX) give us land back at least we will able to develop new industrial area and can earn some revenue for state exchequer," V L Kantha Rao, commissioner department of industries told Business Standard. The state has already invested an amount of Rs 351 crore as compensation against land acquisition.
As of now the NATRAX is going ahead with snail-pace. "Almost 90 percent of the land is unused as of now. Barring an administrative building, setting up of labs and testing machines the construction of track and other facilities would require another two-three years," a government source in department of industries said.
Now, if the government gets the land back, according to provisions of The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 if it remained unutilised for five years, it needs to be returned to the original owners or the land bank.
Land compensation is now more than project objective
The project involved acquisition of farm land of 1,412 hectare in ten villages and as many as 160 families were displaced. Of the total 1,669.5 hectares government owned only 256.3 hectares. The district court Indore had ordered the government to pay Rs 30.57 lakh per hectare for non-irrigated land Rs 48.92 lakh per hectare for irrigated land. Thus the state government has to pay an amount of Rs 615.91 crore against 1,014.55 hectare irrigated and 390.87 non-irrigated land. But farmers have filed appeals in Indore High Court and want an enhanced compensation.
The state government has filed a special leave petition in the case against enhanced compensation. According to the rates fixed by Indore High Court an amount of Rs 1,336.88 crore need to be paid to the farmers at the rate of Rs 1.04 crore per hectare for irrigated land and Rs 69.89 lakh for non-irrigated land.
"We will see other issues later firstly we want the unutilized land back or else it would be a huge liability on the government and the NATRAX will not be beneficial to the state," Rao further said.