Telangana rejects Rs 250 crore sop for Reliance project

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has rejected Reliance ADAG’s plea to either waive or give concession of nearly Rs 250 crore for purchasing land to revive the long-pending 100-storey tower project on the city’s outskirts.

The YSR government had allotted 76.2 acre in Manchirevulu In 2007 to Reliance ADAG to build the 100-storey tower. The company had agreed to pay Rs 517 crore to purchase the land but has paid only Rs 250 crore till date. The project is yet to take off.

TS revenue and industry officials, meanwhile, brought to the notice of the government that the cost of the land was now over Rs 15 crore per acre at Manchirevula and Reliance ADAG had already benefited by securing the land for less than Rs 7 crore per acre in 2007. They stated that there was no need to offer further concessions to the group.

Soon after TS was formed and TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao took over as CM in June 2014, ADAG chairman Anil Ambani had met him in Hyderabad and expressed an interest to revive the project. The company did not do anything after that to take the project forward.

KCR ‘not’ in favour of waiver to Reliance
After waiting for over an year, the TS government constituted a panel in 2015 headed by the chief secretary to recommend a “course of action to be taken by the government” on this project.

The committee consists of four other senior officers — the special chief secretaries for finance and municipal administration, and the secretaries for law and industries.

The committee recommended to the government to take “appropriate action” against Reliance ADAG since no efforts were being made to revive the project.

In this backdrop, officials of Reliance ADAG met industries minister K.T. Rama Rao on July 16 and sought waiver or concession to make balance the payment of Rs 250 crore towards purchase of land.

Official sources said the proposal has been referred to the Chief Minister, who is apparently not keen on giving further waivers or concessions. He might, however, agree to relax certain norms in the MoU to execute the project, such as developing it in stages.

The original plan was to develop the Financial District by creating world-class infrastructure to house big national and international financial institutions along with the 100-storey tower. The government is now in favour of allowing the company to develop the Financial District first and the 100-storey tower later as was sought by the company.

Sources added that the government feels that reducing land prices at this stage at a prime location like Manchirevula for a company would send wrong signals and trigger similar demands from other investors, which may cause losses to the state exchequer.