21 Jan 2009, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, which is experiencing a free fall on the integrity index after media expose of undue favours to Satyam, said that it will not cancel the allotment of 50 acres of land to the tainted firm in Visakhapatnam for setting up a SEZ.
“It was for an institution and not an individual,” chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy said in Hyderabad while defending the deal. The “let’s brazen it out” approach of the Congress seems to stem from the realisation that a cancellation of the deal at this juncture would be seen as an admission of wrong doing.
Throwing ethics to the winds, the chief minister had last month got the government allot land to Satyam at a throw away price of Rs 10 lakh per acre when the ruling market price was Rs 5 crore per acre. The sweetheart deal cost the state exchequer Rs 195 crore. The government order issued on December 4, 2008 had said that the land was allotted under “instructions from the chief minister”.
The Raju taint will be difficult to erase as the Congress government went to the extent of snatching land from the elite force Greyhounds to help Satyam. Of the 50 acres, 25 acres were taken away from land allotted for the construction of a commando centre. The other 25 acres came from the Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority (VUDA).
The development demonstrated that the Congress government led by Mr Reddy has been conducting governance in a questionable manner. This cannot but be distressing for the Congress as the Satyam scandal is threatening to dent the image of the party.
Chief minister Reddy has been dismissing charges that he was responsible for the phenomenal rise of Satyam’s tainted founder Ramalinga Raju. He has also been claiming that his government did not go out of the way to help the software company or Maytas firms. But the order books of Maytas Infra — it shows projects worth over Rs 62,000 crore, covering sectors such as irrigation, power, oil, roads and even railways — clearly indicate that it enjoyed “good rapport” with those in power.
The Congress’ rivals can be expected to use the issue in the coming polls. The TDP-led alliance has been alleging that the chief minister “personally negotiated with some companies the possible takeover of Satyam Computer Services” before B Ramalinga Raju made his confessional statement admitting the fraud. They have been describing it as a Rajaskehara Reddy-Ramalinga Raju joint scam.
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