MAKES CASE FOR URGENT NEEd TO AUCTION
the goan I network
PANAJI
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday said some bureaucrats “misguided” him on the issue of the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) buying back the land from Special Economic Zone promoters and made a case for urgency to
auction it.
Rane, who also holds the industries portfolio, said the file for clearing the way for auctioning the large tracts of land, controversially bought back by the State-owned Corporation will be moved to the office of the Advocate General on Monday itself.
“Some officers misguided me. I will have to apologise in the Assembly. The Department especially the IDC gave me wrong information about the SEZ, based on which I gave wrong info to the Assembly. The officer will have to be suspended,” Rane said, while addressing a press conference, adding that there were no guidelines while allotting the plots.
“I don’t want to get into the issues which were already sorted. Rs 54 crore is left to be paid. We’ll have to pay that,” Rane said.
A consultant will have to be appointed to auction five lakh square meters of the land, Rane said, adding that from May, an EMI of nearly Rs 3.5 crore will have to be paid, so recovering the money to pay back the banks is
imperative.
The State government controversially permitted GIDC to buy back the land from the SEZ promoters earlier this year despite the courts ruling that the allotments of land was in itself illegal. FIRs were ordered to be booked against politicians, bureaucrats and the SEZ promoters.
Vishwajit’s father, Pratapsing Rane, who was chief minister then, and current Navelim MLA, Luizinho Faleiro, who was industries minister, were among those against whom the FIRs were registered by the Crime Branch.
Earlier this year, however, the cabinet of late Manohar Parrikar took the decision to buy back the land from the SEZ promoters at nearly a 100 per-cent premium and also to drop all the FIRs.
