The Kerala government is under the scanner for transferring industrial land in Palakkad to the controversial businessman Vijay Mallya at heavily discounted rates. The deal took place in 2013, according to a Right to Information Act query.
United Breweries Group was given 20 acres of land in Puthussery West in Kanjikode in Palakkad district, at the rate of R70,000 per cent (a measure of land) of the land. One acre is 100 cents. The market price in the industrial estate area is said to be R3 lakh per cent. There is no information or documents available on what kind of industry Mallya proposed to develop in Palakkad, although UB group owns a bottling plant in Puthussery.
According to Asianet TV channel, that broke the news story on Kerala government’s transactions with Mallya, the company has paid only R14 crore.
Palakkad district collector Marykutty IAS, when contacted, told FE that the issue of land transfer was yet to come to her notice. “However, based on media reports, I can order a probe,” she said.
Congress-led UDF (United Democratic Front), heading for the assembly poll in May, is already confronting a clutch of land bounty scandals. The State revenue department has been battling controversies about the hasty transfer deals, when the media this week unearthed documents on land favours to Vijay Mallya in 2013.
On the eve of Assembly election in May, Chandy government has gone on back foot over the transfer of land to a convicted “godman” Santhosh Madhavan and for allowing the filling and reclamation of a lake, known as Methran kayal for a R1,000-crore tourism project by a Gulf-based group, flouting the water body conservation legislation of the state.
