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http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/chennai-prime-iit-land-ends-up-in-tata-kitty/267402.html
Express News Service
First Published: 21 Apr 2011 01:54:00 AM IST
CHENNAI: What will you call an entity that encroaches into a vast stretch of land, later gives back a small slice of it to the rightful owner, that too after repeated requests, and then hands over the bigger chunk to a real estate company? Mafioso? Land shark? The Tamil Nadu government did exactly that in 1993 by arbitrarily taking over 40 acres of land registered in the name of IIT-Madras in Taramani and later allotting the institution around 11 acres in 2007 for building a research park after IIT made a series of pleas over a period of six years.
IIT-Madras
In fact, even the IIT was not aware that the 40 acres adjacent to the institute’s eastern perimeter belonged to it when it first wrote to the government in 2001, seeking 10 acres for setting up an R&D Park in the immediate vicinity of its campus in Guindy. The land that was lying vacant had then been taken over for setting up the MGR Film City, which became operational in 1994.
In April 2002, when the government decided to set up an ‘MGR Knowledge Park’ in the 24.78 acres inside the film city that remained unutilised—to house different research projects in information technology, biotechnology and telecommunication—the IIT sought 10 acres in the proposed park for its exclusive use at ‘nominal rates’.
However, three months prior to the notification on the knowledge park, the Special Commissioner of Land Administration, Chepauk, had written to the government that the piece of land that the IIT had asked for formed a portion of the land leased for the film city and that the entire land in Kanagam village, as per revenue records, was registered in the name of IIT-M, and made it clear that IIT-M owned the land.
Recommending the allotment of 10 acres, the commissioner also wondered “how the land belonging to the IIT has been recommended for lease to Film City without IIT’s consent”.
Yet, according to a copy of the correspondence available with Express, IIT had to wage a prolonged battle till 2007 to get the 11 acres, on which it has now constructed the posh IIT-M Research Park, which has three towers, each of them 12-storey structures, having a total office space of 1.6 million square feet.
But then, a good portion of the rest of the land - 25.27 acre—of which IIT is the owner, has been given on a 99-year-old lease to Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd for constructing the Ramanujam IT SEZ, which will have ‘a high-end residential enclave with walk-to work convenience (150 apartments), a retail mall (2.5 lakh sq feet), 100 service apartments and a 1,500- seat international convention centre.’
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(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP