Reliance plans to use Orissa Road Corp land

Even as Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Industries is facing protests at different places over its retail business, the company has approached the Orissa State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) with a proposal to take on lease the unutilised land available with the state-owned company for processing of agricultural product, development of market yard, storage among other related activities.

As per the proposal, the company will take the land under possession of OSRTC at different places in the state on sub-lease basis and pay a monthly rental for the same.

While the state government has given in principle approval to the proposal, the modalities for it are being worked out, official sources said.

This proposal has come in handy for OSRTC whose accumulated loss stood at about Rs.234.74 crore as on 31st March 2005.

When contacted, transport minister Jainarayan Mishra said, "We have received a proposal from Reliance regarding utilisation of the waste land under possession of OSRTC. However, the matter is being examined by the revenue and the general administration department and no final decision has been taken yet".

Initially, the company had evinced interest for the OSRTC properties in all the district head quarters of the state along with the properties in 4 to 5 commercially active towns.

It intended to expand its operations to other areas later on, sources added.

While some portion of the land currently under occupation of OSRTC belong to the corporation, the remaining portion belongs to revenue and general administration (GA) department.

While GA department is the owner of properties coming under the jurisdiction of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), the properties at other locations are under the revenue department.

The revenue department is examining the proposal and a decision is expected shortly.

However, the process can gain momentum only after necessary concurrence is obtained from the revenue and general administration department, sources added.

Once the concurrence is obtained from GA and revenue department for sub-leasing the land, OSRTC will finalise the draft agreement for the purpose.

If every thing goes through, the Orissa government, OSRTC and Reliance will sign a tripartite agreement, he added.

In the meantime, the government is weighing various options for sub-leasing of land currently in the possession of the corporation.

In the first case, OSRTC will have to surrender the leasing right to the revenue department (which in turn will work out the modalities of sub-leasing) or OSRTC can formulate the terms and conditions of its own for sub-leasing.

In all probability, the sub-leasing will be on revenue sharing basis between the revenue department and OSRTC.

The ratio will be worked out for revenue sharing between them.

However, to maintain transparency in the matter, the government is also seriously considering the option of advertising in the newspapers and to adopt an open bidding process for sub-leasing of the land.

It will enable the government to evaluate the Reliance's offfer vis-a-vis other proposals.

The government will choose the best proposal based upon merit, highly placed official sources said.

After years of loss, OSRTC earned a profit of Rs.55 lakh in 2002-03.This increased to Rs.65 lakhs in 2003-04 before declining to Rs.34 lakhs in 2004-05.