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| Courtesy slumber: J&K losing Rs 100 Cr property in Kolkata | | Farooq’s dream of CAS, Kisan Ghar in West Bengal remains unfulfilled for 19 years | | AHMED ALI FAYYAZ
SRINAGAR, Jun 17: Due to its chronic disease of inaction and red tapeism, Government of Jammu & Kashmir is losing seven Kanals of prime land in Kolkata’s prestigious Salt Lake area which had been acquired by then Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah in 1988 for raising a Kisan Ghar and Controlled Atmosphere Storage (CAS) against nominal rentals for a period of 999 years. Currently valued at over Rs 100 Crore, successive governments have failed to exploit this invaluable asset for the fruit traders and, according to informed sources, West Bengal government has begun the process of cancellation of lease---second time in the last nine years.
Authoritative sources in Housing & Urban Development Department of the Government of West Bengal disclosed to Early Times that Principal Secretary R K Pradhan had, of late, asked his subordinate officials to start process of cancellation of 6.82 Kanals of land that had been leased out to Government of J&K for raising a Kisan Ghar in Sector 3 and a CAS in Sector 5 of Salt Lake area of Kolkata on 16th of January 1988. This prime land had been allotted to J&K Government for a song for 999 years in the wake of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s sustained persuation with his West Bengal counterpart Jyoti Basu.
Ironically, not only Governor’s administration in 1990-96 period but also Farooq Abdullah’s own bureaucracy, first in 1988-90 and later in 1996-2000 took no initiative in the direction of starting the construction. For reasons, nowhere mentioned in the official records, J&K Government did not even take the allotted land into its possession till December 2000. It ignored all the notices and warnings from Kolkata and did not honour the condition of raising the structures in three years. Consequently, Government of West Bengal imposed a penalty of Rs 52,000 in 1995 which was shamelessly paid by Governor’s administration on 17th April 1995.
Failing to break even the successor National Conference government’s slumber, Government of West Bengal cancelled the lease vide Order No: WB-4433 on 11th December 2000.
In 2003, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed did a lot of persuation with the Government of West Bengal and succeeded in getting the lease restored on the condition that the project would be completed “within three years”. Consequent upon the desired disposal of a compromise suit filed jointly by Governments of West Bengal and J&K in a civil court in Kolkata, Government of West Bengal restored lease rights of both the plots vide Order No: WB-834 on 18th November 2004 and thereafter possession in favour of Government of J&K vide Order No: WB-316 on 22nd February 2005. Government of J&K gave yet another undertaking that it would complete the project in the next three years i.e before 22nd March 2008.
Even as dozens of officials from Directorate of Horticulture (Planning & Marketing) as also senior bureaucrats kept shuttling on pleasure trips between Srinagar, New Delhi and Kolkata, paid penalty of Rs 52,000 in 1995 for sustained default and even remuneration of Rs 5 Lakh to a consultancy for preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) in 2006, it never started any work. Multinational companies and giants in the corporate sector raised huge buildings around this area but seven Kanals of the land in possession of J&K Government turned into a slum. Reports say that dengue and other mosquito-spread diseases caused casualties when slum-dwellers occupied the land and turned it into a septic basin.
According to informed sources in J&K Government, Horticulture (P&M) Department’s Kolkata-based Area Marketing Officer, Mohammad Rafeeq Mir, got the slum dwellers removed with his personal efforts and purchased a rope from market out of his own salary to raise “fencing” around the plots as the Government did not respond to his repeated requests of starting construction of at least the boundary wall.
Committing default after default and brazen violation of all agreements, Government of J&K trumpeted the slogans of “Khushhaal Kashmir” and rosy schemes for the Valley’s apple-growers and traders but did not budge an inch to make use of the land in Kolkata. Government of West Bengal slapped notice after notice on the defaulter J&K Government, extended its mercies only to learn that Srinagar had no political or bureaucratic will to exploit the highly attractive Bengal market for its ‘Golden Delicious’ and ‘American’ apple species.
Reads a note put up to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah: “….but in the meeting on 19-02-2009 it was understood that West Bengal Government have run out of patience and gathered an impression that J&K Government is not at all interested in the project and thereby they (J&K Govt) seek extensions only without any cogent reasons”. Even as an amount of Rs 10 Lakh was earmarked for raising of the boundary wall, work never started till it lapsed on March 31, 2009.
Even Omar Abdullah’s government has deferred the project and Chief Minister has desired Minister incharge Horticulture to visit Kolkata and submit his report. No time frame has been set for it. Sources said that having failed to mobilize successive governments in J&K for the last 20 years, Government of West Bengal had finally started the process of cancellation of lease.
Asked for his comments, Minister of Horticulture, Sham Lal, confirmed to Early Times that there had been sustained default by successive governments in J&K in regarding the lease agreement with Government of West Bengal but he sought to assure that work would start on the project “in near future”. “On the orders of Chief Minister, I am going to visit the spot alongwith CM’s Political Advisor. We are ourselves both from private corporate sector and aware of the value of prime land at Salt Lake. We are sure to kickstart the project and complete it in a couple of years”.
He said that National Institute of Agriculture Marketing Jaipur had prepared the DPR at a cost of Rs 376 Lakhs years before and the entire project required to be reviewed in the view of cost escalation and state-of-the-art technology being adopted in construction and operation of Controlled Atmosphere Storages. “We will be submitting a fresh proposal with a vision of next 50 years”, Sham Lal said. He said it was unfortunate that our political leaders and bureaucrats had slept over sensitive matters in horticulture sector for decades and put valuable properties at Azadpur and Shalimar Garden in New Delhi besides two shops in Mumbai “in dead storage”. “I am now recovering and utilizing all these forgotten properties”, he said.
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