Vattinagulapally IT park land offered to Wipro

In a significant development, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to cancel the proposed IT park at Vattinagulapally, Hyderabad, in favour of the Indian software giant Wipro Limited for its new campus at the same location. The total extent of this park is around 150 acres.

"Wipro has been asking the government to allocate over 100 acres of land for the development of a new campus for quite some time. Now, we would like to offer the land to them for their proposed campus," a senior government official told Business Standard on Tuesday.

However, the immediate reason which led to the cancellation of the proposed IT park, officials said, was that part of the land falls under the catchment of the city's drinking water reservoirs.

Lakshmi Parthasarathi, who recently took charge as the new principal secretary of the state Industries department, is said to have found out that part of the land earmarked for the development of IT park falls under the GO 111, which prohibits any civil constructions in the catchment area of Himayat Sagar and Gandipet drinking water reservoirs, the lifelines of the state capital.

According to sources, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has agreed to the idea of cancelling the bid process with regard to Vattinagulapally IT park and has invited Wipro chief Azim Premji to set up campus at the proposed site.

The government's keenness to provide huge chunk of land to Wipro comes after the company is said to have promised to create over 30,000 jobs on its new campus. It currently has over 3,000 professionals on the existing campus in Hyderabad.

The government may consider giving the entire land to Wipro and ask it to develop a greenbelt in the area which falls under the catchment of the city's reservoirs.

The land for the construction of the campus is expected to be allotted to the company at market price, which matches the upset price of Rs 40 lakh per acre as fixed by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), officials said.

This weekend, top brass of Wipro is expected to fly down to Hyderabad and visit the location before accepting the offer.

"Earlier, we offered 30 acres of land near Gachibowli to Wipro for setting up their second campus, but problems cropped up when the company wanted to acquire more land in the vicinity. We, therefore, had to look for other alternatives," an APIIC official said.

The state government's decision to cancel the Vattinagulapally bid appears to be prompted by other reasons too including the price variation quoted by the top two bidders "� Lanco Infratech Limited and the second highest bidder Nagarjuna Construction Limited (NCL). While Lanco quoted Rs 2.1 crore per acre, NCL quoted Rs 81 lakh on the upset price of Rs 40 lakh fixed by APIIC for the development of the IT park under private sector.

Similar proposals from Infosys and TCS for 100 acres of land each for the development of new campuses too are under consideration, IT officials said.

Meanwhile, the state government has cleared the process for the other three proposed IT parks "� two in Hyderabad and one in Visakhapatnam. It has also asked APIIC officials to return the EMD (earnest money deposit) to the respective bidders of the Vattinagulapally IT park.

While Lanco Infratech opted for Manikonda IT park, development of Rayadurg will be given to DLF.

According to officials, DLF that came close to Lanco in bidding for the Rayadurg IT park would be asked to match the price of Rs 3.69 lakh per acre as quoted by the highest bidder for awarding the same.

The Vizag IT park will be awarded to Lanco Infratech. It may be recalled that the government had put a condition, which stated that each firm will be given only one IT park even if it emerges as the highest bidders for more than one for the three IT parks proposed in Hyderabad.

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Landing a deal

• Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy agreed to the idea of cancelling the bid process and indicated the same to Wipro chief Azim Premji
• The govt's decision to cancel the bid is prompted by various reasons including price variation quoted by top two bidders "� Lanco Infratech Limited and Nagarjuna Construction Limited