Fortis offers to pay DDA for Escorts land

Offers to pay current market value for the land.

Fortis Healthcare has offered to have an out-of-court settlement with Delhi Development Authority, which has cancelled the lease on land occupied by Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC). Fortis Healthcare has offered to pay DDA the land's current market value.

"We are working on a settlement formula with all the interested parties. We did make such an offer but the matter is sub-judice and I will not want to comment any further," said Fortis Chairman Harpal Singh.

If the offer is accepted, Fortis, which recently acquired EHIRC for Rs 650 crore from Escorts Ltd, may end up paying an additional Rs 500 crore, according to estimates given by real estate consultants.

The hospital occupies about 33,396 sq yards in New Friends Colony, where the going rate is given as Rs 1.5 lakh a sq yard.

DDA had cancelled the lease on the ground that the land was, in 1982, given at concessional rates when the hospital was run by a charitable trust. Escorts was to be a general public hospital with an obligation to provide at least 25 per cent of its beds to financially vulnerable sections of society. With the conversion of Escorts into a commercial entity about two years ago, the 1982 arrangement, according to DDA, was violated.

Singh refused to give any estimate of the money that Fortis would have to pay if the settlement materialised. "That is something that will have to be worked out in detail," he said.

DDA's Commissioner of Land Disposal RK Singh was not available for comments. A DDA official said, "A proposal was made by Escorts about a year ago as well. It was willing to pay about Rs 400 crore or so to settle the dispute. It was being examined by the urban development ministry and the issue even went to the law ministry." However, nothing came of it.

PARTY POOPERS
Anil Nanda has questioned the conversion of EHIRC from a charity into a company

Delhi HC has ordered status quo on the transaction

DDA has cancelled the land lease alleging violations of its arrangement