Hyderabad: Former health minister and Siddipet MLA Harish Rao on Saturday, November 22, doubled down on Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) allegations of a massive scam by the ruling Congress and put forward 8 questions for the grand old party.
Dubbing the Hyderabad Industrial Land Transformation Policy as “Hyderabad Industrial Land Looting Policy”, he asked why the government is allowing conversion of lands at the cheaper Sub-Registrar Office (SRO) value instead of opting for a higher Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TGIIC) value.
He questioned that if the government had already planned to increase the SRO rates within ORR, why launch the scheme now and cause losses to the revenue?
“Why are 9,292 acres being converted at just 30 per cent of registration value, generating only Rs 5,000 crore, while the land value is Rs 5 lakh crore. Where is the remaining Rs 4.95 lakh crore going?” Harish Rao remarked.
The day before, IT and industries minister Sridhar Babu had issued a clarification after the same land scam allegations were made by KTR and claimed that the industrial land in question was freehold land sold by the previous BRS government itself and was now only being converted for other commercial activities.
He said the 30 per cent figure quoted by KTR was just the impact fee and added that out of the 9,292 acres mentioned by BRS, only 4,040 acres are actually plotted land, while the rest comes under infrastructure like roads or drainage.
He accused the Congress of causing huge losses to the state’s treasury by bringing down the rate to just 30 percent of the SRO when under the BRS people had paid double the SRO rate.
He slammed Revanth Reddy, saying the latter had promised to do away with Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) and Building Regularisation Scheme (BRS), but instead burdened the poor by charging them 60 to 80 per cent LRS and is now giving away land to industrialists at just 30 percent.
Harsih Rao said the scheme was being too generous by waiving off processing fees, causing losses of Rs 13,500 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA).
He reiterated his party’s allegations, saying the scheme was meant to benefit those close to Revanth Reddy. He demanded to know whether the Rs 5,000 crore revenue projected by Sridhar Babu would be used for developing new industrial corridors, or would it be diverted to clear pending bills of selected contractors.
