Real estate major Unitech has temporarily shelved its ambitious Rs 22,000-crore special economic zone (SEZ) project in Haryana, blaming the state authorities for "not assisting" it in land acquisition.
However, the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corp (HSIIDC) has accused the company of making "excuses" and said it has not shown "any serious intent" in buying the land for this project since the formation of the joint venture two years ago.
"Yes, we have put on hold our SEZ project at Sonepat for the time being not because of economic recession but due to unclear policies of the state government and not helping us in acquiring land," said an official spokesman of Unitech.
He said that HSIIDC had agreed to help in acquiring land for SEZ project but did not initiate in this regard. "They (HSIIDC) had told us to help in this project by way of buying land for us but they did not do so," he said.
However, when contacted, HSIIDC General Manager Jeevan Bhardwaj said that Unitech was making excuses as it had not acquired any land for the SEZ project so far. "How can they say this (HSIIDC did not help)... When they have not acquired any land so far. We just have to acquire land for maintaining congruity," he said.
Unitech, in collaboration with HSIIDC, had announced setting up an SEZ at Kundli in Sonepat on over 10,000 acres of land, proposed to be developed in four phases.
HSIIDC had 10 per cent equity in this project and it had to acquire up to 25 per cent of the land for maintaining the congruity of the project.
The Unitech spokesperson further said non-availability of land for this project was also another reason for shelving this project. "At this point of time, it is not possible to buy even 2,500 acres of land while maintaining the congruity for Multi-Product SEZ," he said.
