No land available, West Bengal tells Wipro, Infy

As a direct fallout of the controversy over the Vedic Village resort, the West Bengal government has decided to scrap its proposed IT township, meant to accommodate Infosys and Wipro, near the resort.

According to a top official of the Department of Information and Technology, though there has been no public communication to this effect so far, the decision will shortly be communicated to the two IT majors, which were assured of 300 acres each to set up their centres there.

Faced with the allegations of entering into a bad deal which gave an undue benefit to the promoters of Vedic Village Resorts Company, Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Molla had demanded that the proposed IT township should be scrapped with immediate effect.

State minister of information technology, Debesh Das, was not available for comment.

Incidentally, the same group of realtors that promoted the controversial Vedic Village resorts were given the charge of procuring 1,200 acres of land near the resort for the proposed IT township.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had already ordered an inquiry into the grim affairs of Vedic Village, which came under a scanner after its nexus with the land mafias came to light following a death and a violent incident in which the local villagers set fire to the premier resort.

The state government has admitted that there is a prima facie evidence that the promoters of Vedic Village had engaged musclemen to procure the land at cheap rates from local farmers.

Last year, the state IT department had formed a joint venture with the Vedic Village promoters, which allowed the latter to procure the 1,200 acres from the farmers.

The consortium of the promoters formed a different company, Akash Nirman Private Ltd, and started buying land from the farmers. So far, they have procured around 500 acres of land. "But, not a single decimal of land has been transferred to the joint venture company. So, we can easily get out of the situation without much hassles," said a senior official of the IT department.

Also, he informed that Webel, the state government's nodal agency for IT industry, has entered into a joint venture with Akash Nirman Company, and the government will have to look into it to find out how best to dissolve that.

Without referring to minister Rezzak Molla's outburst of Wednesday, the official representing the IT department said, "Our role was limited to that of a marketing agent. A number of state government departments were involved in it to give it a full shape. Now, if anybody does not want to continue to take part in it then it becomes automatically difficult to pursue the project."

Image: Wipro chief Azim Premji.

Photograph: Reuters