The cash-strapped West Bengal government seems to have found an answer to the rising losses of the state PSUs in unlocking idle land held by such entities.
After initiating the process to offload idle land in prime locations of Kolkata, owned by various state-run transport agencies; the state government is now planning to take the similar route to turn around its loss making state power utility Durgapur Projects Ltd (DPL).
The state government is planning to either sell or lease about 500 acres of unused land of DPL, which incurred a loss of about Rs 140 crore in 2012-13. The state PSU, which was incidentally the first undertaking of the West Bengal government, has a total of 2,300 acres of land at Burdwan and neighbouring districts of the state.
"Of this 1,200 acre is plant area and substations are spread over another 300 acres. There is 800 acres of land originally meant for township near plant area in Burdwan. But, large part of this is lying idle for years," said one official.
According to officials, about 500 acres has already been identified for commercial utilistaion, which can generate few thousand crore for the government. When contacted, state power secretary Malay De said, "There is some plan. But this is too early to comment on."
Incidentally, the state cabinet has already taken up a proposal to sell or lease land in the city and neighbouring areas, lying idle with four state-owned transport agencies — Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC), Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC), South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC) and West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation (WBSTC). The state government curently provides annual subsidy of Rs 400 crore to these transport bodies.
All these transport companies jointly own 139 acres in the Kolkat and adjacent areas, of which about 60% is unused land. Of the four transport agencies, CSTC has the largest chunk of about 89 acres, followed by CTC which owns 33 acres. SBSTC and WBSTC, on the other hand, have nine and eight acres. Although the valuation is yet to be done, given the prime locations of these lands, it can well generate substatial fund to revive the state transport agencies.
The state government is planning to offload these land parcels in phases and for the first phase tender is likely to be floated soon.
