A roller coaster of hopes and disappointments

NAGPUR: Good news continues to keep pouring for Mihan which was touted to be Nagpur’s lifeline when the project was first mooted several years ago. After last month Yoga guru Baba Ramdev laid the foundation stone for the ‘world’s biggest food park’ at Mihan, his deputy Acharya Balkrishna announced that Patanjali would be taking up 40 acres over and above the 100 acres it has been alloted.Ramdev has promised 10,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs, with benefits for 5 lakh farmers as well.
A year ago Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) had also announced a Rs6,000 crore aerospace park. But soon, ADAG cut its requirement from 289 acres to 104 acres, and recently defaulted on paying the instalment for this land parcel too.
Hopes were rekindled recently when ADAG and French company Dassault announced a partnership as part of India’s purchase of Rafale fighter jets, with a chunk of the work happening at Nagpur.
Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), the state government agency developing Mihan, has high hopes from Ramdev’s venture. Officials said a Patanjali team at Nagpur is pushing the food park, which may be ready in a reasonable time, if not six months as announced by Ramdev.
Mihan — Multimodal International Hub Airport at Nagpur — has been a roller coaster of such hopes and disappointments. Conceived over 20 years ago, everyone from politicians to realtors have banked on Mihan for growth.
Spread over 4,300 hectares, the project has three components; a special economic zone (SEZ) on 1,342 hectares and non-SEZ area (900 hectares) for units in export and domestic markets respectively, and the multimodal cargo hub.
The cargo hub is nowhere to be seen while SEZs are no longer attractive since minimum alternate tax (MAT) came in 2011.
The SEZ land has been grossly underutilized. Some 887 hectares land has been allotted, 68% of the total. But just seven major units are operating on 80 hectares, 5% of the area. Even in these, utilization of land is just 10 to 20%.
Patanjali has 230 acres in non-SEZ and 60 acres in SEZ. Over 100 acres each was given to the proposed IIM and AIIMS in the non-SEZ area. This part also has Future Group’s logistics park and a warehouse of e-commerce giant Amazon.
Lack of companies is taking a toll on the infrastructure. MADC’s revenue cannot maintain the infrastructure built 10 years ago. Roads need repairs while street lights are not working, say investors.
Lokesh Srivastav, chief operating officer at Tal Manufacturing Solutions, said high power rates were a major concern, but the new government has resolved the issue.
Earlier this year, show-cause notices were sent to companies that have not begun work. Nine are no longer keen on Mihan plans. Another 10 gave no concrete plans while some did not respond, sources said.
Among bigger players that have dropped Mihan plans are Wipro (117 acres) and L&T Infocity (50 acres). DLF, Ambuja Realty and HCL are still keen, with HCL signing an agreement to use 50 of the 140 acres allotted. Infosys had started work in 2013 but the progress is very slow.
MADC does not have a policy on dealing with companies that took land and did nothing. The objective remains to encourage them to commence projects. However, a decision has to be taken on giving extensions. A transfer policy to allow companies to sell land to other players has been mooted. Ousting companies may have legal complications too, since they have paid the full price of the land, a source said.