DLF optimistic on township

Speaking to Business Standard, DLF officials in charge of the Dankuni project, said, "The company remains committed to the project. The government has not briefed DLF about any of its plans regarding the township, after the minister's comment."

However, any decision to suspend the project would not only be a big loss to DLF, but to West Bengal as well, because the project was awarded to the company through a global tender, after assessing its commercial viability, said the official.

The process of land purchase at Dankuni had been put off for now as the elected representatives on the land procurement committee, after the panchayat elections, were all members of the opposition Trinamul Congress and opposed to the project.

Besides, they were yet to assume their office, according to sources at the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).

KMDA sources claimed it had also not received any intimation from the state urban development department in this regard, though it was under the departmental minister Asok Bhattacharya who announced the cancellation of the land purchase proposal for the project.

P R Baviskar, chief executive officer of KMDA, refused to comment on the issue, but confirmed that KMDA has not received any communication from the state government regarding land purchase.

In such a situation, DLF did not expect to begin work at the proposed township, which is now running six months behind schedule, within 2008, confirmed company officials.

While tension has been simmering at the site of township for quite some time, the controversy surfaced recently, when the state urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya said the government would not do any purchase of land, thereby stalling project in Dankuni.

He said land purchase was against the will of the opposition parties and landowners in the area.

The Rs 33,000 crore township project, spread over 4,840 acres of land, was one of the largest public private partnership projects in the country.

Of the total project area, 771 acres had been earmarked for industry.

Textile, food processing and engineering industries were to come up the earmaked industrial area.

Around 1,872 acres had been kept for housing projects.

About 600 families were to be evicted from their land in the first phase, in which 1,644 acres of land would be acquired.

Trinamul had said it was unfair to throw people out of their homes by taking over their land, only to build high-priced houses for wealthy buyers, and indicated industry should come up only on purchased land which was barren or waste land and not highly fertile as in Dankuni.