JOIN USKind Katta and blind KIADB favoured firm
On the recommendation of Katta Subramanya Naidu, who resigned on Friday as Minister for Industries, a company named S&S Atithi Hotels Pvt Ltd got five acres of land in 2007 for a resort, within 17 days of filing an application.
Three years after it got the land, the firm, which has shown its address as 20, 18th Cross, 8th Main, Malleswaram, Bangalore, is yet to begin work at the site.
In a letter dated May 21, 2007, Katta directed the KIADB to allot the land to the company even before it filed an application seeking approval for the resort project from Karnataka Udyoga Mitra.
Clearance
Udyoga Mitra, a single-window agency to clear projects with investment less than Rs 50 crore, approved the resort project in its meeting on July 28, 2007.
It was only on August 8, 2007, two-and-a-half months after the minister was generous enough to recommend land for the firm even before it placed the demand for it, and 10 days after its proposal was approved by the relevant government agency, that Atithi Hotels woke up and filed an application with the KIADB seeking land.
Atithi Hotels’ tardiness was matched by alacrity by the KIADB, which allotted land to the firm just 17 days later - on August 25, 2007.
The letter approving the allotment stated that the land had been allotted on lease-cum-sale agreement.
Annual fee
Atithi Hotels was required to pay an annual fee of Rs 1,000 an acre. The land was allotted on lease for six years, after which the KIADB could extend the lease for a further six-year period, or the company may prefer to purchase the said land at Rs 21 lakh per acre - the market price on the day of allotment.
The KIADB norms prescribe that the allottee begin its operation within two years from the day of allotment. But the land allotted to Atithi Hotels is still vacant.
Lokayukta police, it is learnt, are inquiring into the background of the owners of S&S Atithi Hotels and the procedure adopted to allot KIADB land to the firm.
The Malleswaram-based companies seem to be dear to Katta. Itasca Software Development Pvt Ltd, which is in the centre of a controversy over illegal allotment of 325 acres in Jala hobli, has also shown its official address as Malleswaram.
The deal
* Katta recommends land allotment even before S&S Athithi Hotels files an application
* Company files application for land after Industries Department decides to allot land
* Land allotted within 17 days of receipt of application
* Company gets land for Rs 1,000 per year/acre
* Lokayukta police are probing allotment of land