Mollah for scrapping IT township project

Vedic Village Group claims to possess much more land in the area than they are allowed to

Faced with allegation of land scam in Vedic Village case, land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah has demanded scrapping of the 1,200-acre IT township project for which the state government had entered into a joint venture with Vedic Village Resorts Private Ltd. The proposed IT project was to be built under the IT department with private collaboration. There was no immediate reaction from the concerned department.

Four days back, Debesh Das, the IT minister, had told that a consortium of realtors, including Vedic Village owners, have been entrusted with procuring 1,200 acres near Rajarhat New Town for the proposed township. They have procured 500 acres so far.

According to the deal, the government will get 600 acres, and the rest will be the township. It is now clear that the realtors engaged musclemen like Gaffar Molla who went about threatening the villagers to sell their land at a throwaway price.

Victims have filed complaints against forcible purchase of land. Mollah said that though the proposal was approved by the government, now it was better to scrap it. He cited some projects which were to be developed by the Salim Group but had to be scrapped after public resistance. Incidentally, Raj K Modi, the chairman of the Vedic Village Resorts Company, who has been arrested two days back was denied bail today and sent to 19 days judicial custody by the lower court despite police not opposing his bail plea.

Mollah tried to shield himself from the charges of collaborating with the land mafias. He said today that nobody was favoured. Mollah said that for the 44 acre land given on lease for 99 years, the state government got Rs 97 lakh as one-time payment with Rs 88,540 as annual rent.

However, he admitted that at the time of fixing the price, his department was of the opinion that the price should have been at least Rs 5 crore. But Mollah said that price was less at the time of taking possession and that was considered as baseline. In hindsight one might say that they got the land at a throwaway price, he said.

The Vedic Village group claims to possess much more land than they are allowed to. By Modi’s own admission, they own around 150 acres. Mollah had no answer to that. The land issue continues to dog the Left Front government.

There had been allegations that the government, while going for outright acquisition of land for any public or commercial purpose, unleashed the land mafias to keep the land price at a low level, which was perhaps true in case of Rajarhat New Town. Tomorrow, Gautam Deb, the minister for housing, who is in charge of land acquisition for Rajarhat New Town, is expected to state his side of the story.