New investment: Hero Corp faces land hurdle

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government and AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation are confident of overcoming the land hurdle for the Hero MotoCorp investment in Chittoor district.
Litigations claiming the land allotted to the company as inam (gift) land and resistance from farmers in possession of it land are issues that the government needs to sort  out before handing it over to the company.

The AP government had signed a memorandum of understanding with Hero MotoCorp in september 2014 and allotted 600 acres of land in Madannapalem village in Satyavedu mandal of Chittoor district where the company will be investing around Rs 3,000 crore. However, land is yet to be handed over to the company. APIIC officials say the land will be handed over at any time to the company.

Interestingly, only four farmers were using the land for cultivation before the MoU, and after the deal, most of the land is being brought under cultivation. Officials say, legally speaking, they are not farmers, but encroachers who want to reap some benefit. A senior state government official said, “The land was originally an inam land. Our information is that Inamdar was issueless and abolished.”

He also said that in 1965 the district collector issued a notification and there were no claimants. Following all procedures, the land was declared as government land then. In 2006, after completing all the formalities, the land was handed over to APIIC.

“The corporation has been in possession of the land from then on. After the land was handed over to APIIC, people, who are claiming it, went to court and got some orders. But APIIC is not a party to any of these cases and there is no order on us. Al those cases are null and void as far as APIIC is concerned. We have all rights to hand over the land to Hero MotoCorp and we will be doing this at any point of time,” the official added.

APIIC managing director K.V. Satyanarayana, said, “Handing over of the land is in the process. The government will fight the legal cases in higher courts. We don’t have exact dates of ground breaking ceremony by Hero MotoCorp but they are ready to do it at any time. APIIC is the absolute owner of the land.”

A Hero MotoCorp spokesperson said, “The proposed manufacturing facility in AP, when operational, will be our sixth plant. We will start work on this plant before we commission our fifth facility at Halol in Gujarat. We are well on track as per our timelines for the AP facility.”

Officials have begun work on excavation for setting up new high tension towers. An official said, “Old HT towers on the land will be removed after the farmers’ water melon crop is over as we don’t want to disturb their income.  In the next 10 days the crop will be harvested. None of these farmers’ names are in revenue records.”

Officials are suspecting that someone is instigating the farmers who started cultivating the land after the MoU was  announced .

 However, the government wants to take a ‘lenient’ approach towards the ‘farmers’ and don’t want to deny them any ‘smallest right or benefit’. An official said, “The district collector has to come to an understanding with the farmers who have encroached upon the land. It will be announced soon.”