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Kumaraswamy hits out at Khandre on status of HMT land
Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy visiting the HMT watch showroom in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy and Karnataka Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre on Tuesday sparred over the status of land under HMT’s control in Bengaluru, with the former accusing the Congress government of pursuing “vendetta politics” against him.
While Mr. Khandre had termed the sale of land by HMT as “illegal” since it was forest land and sought to reclaim the vacant portion of 281 acres immediately, of the total 599 acres, Mr. Kumaraswamy maintained that it was not forest land and the question of returning the land to the State government does not arise.
“You (Mr. Khandre) have issued the order in a hurry. Why did you notice the submission of an interim application in the Supreme Court done in 2020 now? That is because Kumaraswamy wants to revive the PSU. I want to save the legacy of PSUs, make them profitable and generate employment. The State government did a similar thing after I gave the approval to the KIOCL to seek a financial guarantee from the Finance Ministry for a loan,” the Union Minister told presspersons in response to the Forest Minister’s direction to recover vacant land from HMT with immediate effect.
Accusing the Siddaramaiah-led government in the first tenure of granting a no objection certificate (NOC) to a top Bengaluru-based real estate company in 2015 to develop 27 acres of land purchased from HMT, Mr. Kumaraswamy said, “The CCF granted an NOC overlooking the objection. While the government gave the private builder the NOC, it refused to provide the same to ISRO. Land belonging to HMT was given to ISRO, GAIL, Raman Research Institute, and Central Excise on the direction of the Central government.”
Targeting SMK
Without naming the then Congress government under S.M. Krishna, he asked, “Check in whose period the land was sold in the past. Who was ruling the State between 1999 and 2004? Who gave permission to sell 200 acres of land? The person who wanted to make Bengaluru a Singapore. Land worth ₹3,000 crore was sold for pittance. I stopped registration of HMT land after becoming the Chief Minister later.”
Mr. Kumaraswamy said the PSU had not encroached on any forest land. “We will ask HMT to move the court to seek its right. The Forest Department does not have any record of the notification. Of about 649 acres that HMT had, about 201 acres of land was received under gift deed, about 259 acres as grant, and about 178 acres from an acquisition.” In 1960, the Chief Conservator of Forest cleared the sale of 280 acres to the PSU. The gazette notification of 1896 in the Mysore Princely State also does not state it is a forest land, he said.
In 2016, a sub-committee of the Forest Department noted that there is no forest nature on the said land and it is of urban in nature with a factory, road, and hospital, among other things, the Union Minister said. He also sought to know if it was forest land, why was the BBMP collecting property tax from private entities and public institutions.
Khandre responds
Meanwhile, responding to allegations, Mr. Khandre said, “I am not working with any pre-conceived notion. My action came after an environmentalist petitioned me following which I had convened a departmental meeting.”
Clarifying that the reclaimed land would be turned into a lung space, he said between 1997 and 2011, HMT sold 165 acres to private entities and public institutions for about ₹313 crore. Insisting that the 1896 gazette had declared the Peenya plantation as a forest, he said that under law there is no scope for denotification of forest land. “If this was not forest land, why would an interim application be made before the Supreme Court for denotification?” he asked.
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