TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Even as the government sits on large chunk of already acquired land, it has issued orders to acquire more land for expansion of Verna Industrial estate.
The government has notified under sub-section (1) of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 that the land is be needed for the estate and warned that all those who have interests in the said land not to obstruct or interfere with any surveyor or other persons involved.
As part of the notification issued by Under Secretary (Revenue-I), Ashutosh Apte, any contract for the disposal of the said land by sale, lease, mortgage, assignment, exchange or otherwise, or any outlay or improvements made without the sanction of the Collector after the date of the publication of this notification, would have no effect while assessing compensation for such parts of the said land as may be finally acquired.
There are already some 50 odd industries in the industrial estate. However as far back as 2011, there was an issue of land being available but locals not being given land and accusations of land being given for certain considerations.
Media reports quoting an inquiry show that around 300 odd plots having an area of more than 5 lakh square metres is lying idle in the industrial estates with 71,000 sqm being in the Verna industrial estate itself.
The chief minister has ordered an inquiry but till date there are unutilised, underutilised, vacant plots or even some allegedly illegal plots. An inquiry was ordered following these allegations. As far back as 2010 then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat had promised to find a solution to this problem. A task force was formed and guidelines issued. However, none of the investigations have come into the public domain and nobody knows what is the position as far as the final position of the plots is.
The task force had then found that there were no policy guidelines on what type of industry was to be allotted land – marble or logistic companies being examples, no priority allotment guidelines and arbitrary out of turn allotments were made to people connected with the Corporation.
But now some guidelines have been formulated, but that’s about all.
