ASHWINI A. writes from Bangalore: The Andhra Pradesh government, according to a report in today’s Deccan Chronicle, has decided to stop rolling out the red carpet for Information Technology companies, as far as allotment of hundreds of acres of land goes.
Instead, the IT companies will be asked to put up units in existing IT Special Economic Zones.
“We suspect that some of the (IT) applicants have real estate interests and we are not going to encourage that,” an unnamed senior official has been quoted as saying.
“Small and medium enterprises need to invest huge amounts for bandwidth, network and connectivity, which they cannot afford in the initial stages,” said IT&C Secretary Shailendra Kumar Joshi. “They will get all these facilities on rent or lease in SEZs.”
Just what the provocation is for the move at this juncture is not known. Is it a fallout of the SEZ controversy in Nandigram and Singur? Is it a realisation that some IT companies have barely concealed real estate intentions? Or is it plain posturing on the part of the Andhra government?
More importantly, is it a case of locking the stable doors after the horses have bolted?
The Chronicle report suggests that some of the IT companies in that State were using land for arbitrage, especially in the so-called Tier-II and Tier-III cities. “Out of the 36 units which were given land in Vizag, 20 units started work only after the government threatened to take back the land,” Joshi is quoted as saying.
Should AP Govt’s decision be some sort of alert for other state governments? Should Karnataka, for instance, do a review of the land allotted to various IT companies in the past six years or so and see if the land has been used for the purpose they were meant for?
26 June 2007 at 6:18 pm
… and reclaim the land and promptly sell it to land sharks /developers/ Realtors/politicians ….
26 June 2007 at 6:37 pm
We have this problem because of our own peculiarity called “land allotment”. Let the companies buy land directly at market rates without the government meddling in the matter. Most problems would vanish.
26 June 2007 at 6:40 pm
SEZ developers alias Realtors acquire land from hapless farmers and inflate to million times and sell it politicians and their pimps, another cunning way of making money and driving farmers suicide.
26 June 2007 at 7:13 pm
Why all the melodramatic cynicism?..no wonder the standards in journalism are dismal.
26 June 2007 at 8:09 pm
Govt of Kar should not go ahead with the SEZ plans. Some of the IT co names and the SEZ promoters who are to set up facilities at Mys are unknown names. The integrated town ship at Bidadi too is no exception.
26 June 2007 at 8:31 pm
This is a good decision by the AP government and in fact must be emulated by other governments in India.
BTW, I am going to stay in Hyderabad soon. Can anyone tell me how badly I will need to learn Telugu to live there? Is it like Marathi in Pune or Punjabi in Chandigarh? Do you have to learn Telugu to get by? I have no hangups about learning Telugu, I just am curious. Can anyone answer my questions?
26 June 2007 at 9:00 pm
Yup I agree with GK3S!
27 June 2007 at 4:34 am
I agree with Gokulam too. The IT companies are profit making ventures and there is no reason they should be allotted land by the government. I have never understood that concept to begin with. Agreed that businesses (NOT just IT ventures) should be given incentive to grow and establish .. but land alottment is just not it. They should buy the land fair and square just like the rest of the mortals do.
27 June 2007 at 9:28 am
Kulwant,
To answer your question – If you are in Hyderabad you don’t have to necessarily speak Telugu. Hindi also would do. However, it is better to learn local language when you are there.
Unfortunately most of the migrants who have come to Bangalore seem to miss that and give a go-by. It is even more appalling that their children who are either born in Bangalore OR migrated along with their parents as infants are also not encouraged to learn Kannada. That is the sad part.
It is always good to appreciate and take the best out of local culture, language or anything good for that matter.
27 June 2007 at 10:15 am
Hi Kulwant
Hyderabad is great host. If you know Hindi, you can get your way in the city. Hyd is warm, generous and good to people. I am sure you will have happy experience in Hyd.
You may find businesses and people not particularly in a tearing hurry..be aware of it and vary your pace accodingly. Get used having atleast dozen cups of chai – only half a cup each time. Your love to enjoying chai earns you friends and affection quickly.
By the way, you get ‘best results’ with people if you are introduced.
cheers
27 June 2007 at 10:56 am
I cannot agree more, why should IT Co be given away …….free land. that too in hundreds of acres! Even the Bheomoth Google does not have the land that Sikkapatte Imp co have in bangalore alone, apart from hundred of acres in andhra, kerla and westbengal.
Sombody needs to ask hard ans from these co now.
27 June 2007 at 7:22 pm
Zulfi, DB: This is nothing new. The Bombay textile mill owners did the very same thing. Allowed their mills to get sick, bribed the Maha government to sell their mill lands and have their cake and eat it too. The mill workers were left in the lurch completely, their condition has to be seen to be believed-they are in absolute penury. I feel so sad when I see those malls and discos in Mumbai. The mill workers got such a raw deal after all the work they did to build Bombay as a textile city (lest we forget, Bombay was built by the textile industry), the mill owners got away with years of unpaid wages, treating them like dirt, and then strutted around talking about “the dyanamism and energy of our companies”, before selling off the very companies and land.
Sorry about that post but really, I keep feeling the acres and acres of land right now under IT companies may end up being sold in the same way. What will happen to the land Infy/et al have when their model no longer makes sense? Any answers? Or do we have another mill land controversy in the making?
27 June 2007 at 9:29 pm
Sugata , I heard NRN is giving the Land for free after making Tax Free Profits .
27 June 2007 at 10:37 pm
Sugata, Z, and DG
DG has been prescient about the same thing happening in Karnataka once the IT bubble bursts! In fact, he has commented on this earlier. In any system, any unaccountable asset gathering is a sure recipe for disaster!
Sugata thank you for the Bombay Textile mills example.
28 June 2007 at 12:20 am
Adding to Sugata’s example, Kirloskar and many ‘old world economy’ companies in Bengaluru have already sold off their land which was obtained at throwaway prices. Brigade is building a huge mixed use complex between Malleshwara and Rajajinagar on the ruins of Kirloskar plant.
A large number of new IT/non-IT SEZs cleared in our state is suspicious. Some of them have got to be bogus unless they had procured land directly from owners. I have never seen such a frenzy by politicians and bureaucrats to sell away the livelihood of their own people.
What the hell is HDK and his ilk doing by creating “knowledge city”, “hardware park”, “health city” blah blah and offering 100s of square kms of land? None of these industries require such huge tracts of land.
Instead of acquiring land, let the govt help create land based trusts or corporations (such as Magarpatta near Pune) where land and facilities are leased/rented out and the land owners receive income on a recurring basis.
28 June 2007 at 12:17 pm
Hindustan Lever/UniLever – moved its office from blore-whitefield to Bombay. 1 year later the land is being converted into MultiApartment. I am not sure if the land was provided by Govt earlier.
28 June 2007 at 6:12 pm
Have you noticed the English media keeps talking (shouting rather) about Bangalore slipping away in IT and takes it for granted that Maha has lost out in the IT race? As in the “we all know that Maha has lost out in the IT race” and “AP set to overtake Karnataka” sense? And yet the STPI figures for the last three years keep showing Karnataka as No.1? And Maha as No.2? What exactly is wrong with them? How can TN and AP, zipping ahead, zooming ahead and leaving Karnataka far behind continue to be No.3/No.4? Or is better to be trailing than leading?