CAG glare on land allotment to Tata Power

CAG has termed the land allotment to Tata Power within the CDA area 'irregular and unauthorized'

Odisha has drawn flak from the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) yet again over irregular allotment of land.

This time, unauthorised grant of administrative nod for acquisition of private as well as government land in favour of Tata Power has invited CAG’s wrath.

The central auditor which is conducting a performance audit on MoU (memorandum of understanding) signed industries, pointed out that the Odisha government granted its nod for acquiring 878.65 acres of private land and leasing 91.34 acres government land within the site notified for Cuttack Development Authority (CDA).

CAG has termed the land allotment to Tata Power within the CDA area ‘irregular and unauthorised’.

“The CAG has raised some objections on land allotment to Tata Power and we have furnished our compliance to them,” said a government official, refusing to elaborate.Tata Power had proposed a 2,000 Mw coal-fired power plant at Naraj near Cuttack. The power plant needed 1,000 acres of land in all.

Though the developer signed an MoU with the state government in September 2006, its project has hitherto remained a non-starter. This is because of the site’s proximity to the Chandaka-Dampada wildlife sanctuary. The plant site was located within a distance of only 1.5 km and wildlife clearance was mandatory for any project to be located within 10-km radius of a national park or wildlife sanctuary. Besides, mounting protests from green activists owing to the deleterious impact of emissions from the power station on wildlife at the nearby Chandaka-Dampada sanctuary had forced the company to alter technology of the power plant from coal-fired to gas-based mode. The company had thereafter submitted a revised application to the state government for a gas-based plant, presumably banking on supplies from the Surat-Paradip natural gas pipeline proposed by GAIL India Ltd.

The company had claimed earlier that the land acquisition process was completed and it had paid Rs 100 crore to Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) towards acquisition cost.

The case of irregular land allotment to Tata Power is likely to land the state government in a tight spot especially after a recent CAG report blamed the government for arbitrary leasing of land in Bhubaneswar without any policy or guidelines.