Uttarakhand seeks out-of-court settlement with IDEB

After having snapped ties with IDEB, the Uttarakhand government is negotiating with the Bangalore-based private developer for an out-of-court settlement over its claim on the Doon cyber Tower (DCT) at the IT park of the state Infrastructure and industrial development corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (Sidcul).

The Sidcul had last year decided to withdraw from a joint venture company with the IDEB for the construction of the cyber tower in a bid to give a fillip to the Sahastradhara IT Park here. The Sidcul has already served notices to the IDEB to end the lease deed, after it failed to complete the construction of the tower due to the financial crisis. But thereafter, IDEB moved a Dehradun court to seek higher compensation. “We are going for an out-of-court settlement with IDEB as far as Doon Cyber tower is concerned,” according to Rakesh Sharma, the state’s principal secretary (industries). “We have already done two rounds of talks in this regard,” he told Business Standard.

Sharma said the government would go for a third-party assessment of the Doon Cyber tower to settle the claim made by the IDEB.

In 2006, Infrastru-cture major Larsen and Toubro had lost to IDEB a contract of building the DCT in the prestigious IT park here. This was despite securing far better points in the bidding process, going by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

A CAG report had stated that the selection of a JV partner of the government-owned Sidcul for building the DCT was “partial and unjustified”. The DCT at IT park, the construction of which hangs in balance, is one of the most prestigious projects of the Sidcul. It was planned and designed as intelligent building for plug and play facility with all kinds of modern amenities.

The IDEB started the construction work in June 2006, but could not continue due to paucity of funds in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The country’s top auditor noted that selection of IDEB was “unjustified” because the firm had no experience of raising non-resource debt (NRD) from technical institutions. As per the conditions of the agreement, the IDEB was responsible for arrangement of at least 60 per cent of the total project cost through NRD.