Hyderabad: The Congress government is planning to take back 11 acres of land allotted to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) at Kokapet at a throwaway price last year, official sources said.
The previous BRS government in the Cabinet meeting held in May 2023 approved the allotment of 11 acres, worth over Rs 660 crore to the BRS for setting up an Institute for Excellence and Human Resource Development for just Rs 37.53 crore “on the sly”.
When the BRS government held an auction for government lands in Kokapet in August 2023, it fetched Rs 100.75 crore per acre. The average price of land parcels auctioned in Kokapet was Rs 60 crore per acre but the BRS government allotted the land in the same Kokapet area to the BRS for just Rs 3.41 crore per acre.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, therefore, is learnt to have held a meeting with senior officials of revenue and law departments last week and enquired about the status of the case in the Telangana High Court. He reportedly asked officials to make strong arguments and ensure that the state government gets back the prime land.
The Congress government wants to auction this land parcel and raise funds for a crop loan waiver scheme. The government needs Rs 31,000 crore by August 15 for crop loan waiver and it is negotiating with banks and RBI for additional loans. It is also considering mortgaging government lands with banks to raise funds and it wants to use Kokapet land parcels either for morgating or auctioning for the purpose.
The Kokapet land allotment was approved by the previous BRS government in May 2023 in a transaction akin to the related party transaction. Though the Cabinet meeting chaired by then chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao approved the allotment of the land, none of the ministers in the previous government, including K.T. Rama Rao, who addressed the media after the meeting, made the decision public. Even the GO pertaining to land allotment was not made public and it came to light only after a few weeks.
Though the allotment kicked up a controversy, an undeterred Chandrashekar Rao laid the foundation for the construction of a 15-storied complex on an 11-acre site at Kokapet on June 5, 2023. Following this, two petitions were filed in the High Court challenging the land allocation for throwaway price and the petitions are still pending with the High Court.
