Haryana Government on Friday decided to take back 1,383.68 acre of land from M/s Reliance Haryana SEZ limited (RHSl) company after Reliance failed to develop the envisaged Special Economic Zone on the said land. The decision was taken at State Cabinet meeting held under Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Now, this land would be used to set up state of the art ‘Global City Project’ as a send investment node under the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Project on 1,000 acres of land. It is proposed to be developed jointly by the HSIIDC and the DMIC Trust/DMICDC through a Special Purpose Vehicle with equity participation by DMIC Trust and HSIIDC in equal proportions.
While talking to media persons, the Chief Minister said that HSIIDC had transferred an area of about 1383.68 acre of land at village Garhi Harsaru to the special purpose vehicle floated by HSIIDC and RVl for implementing the project — Reliance Haryana SEZ limited, for a consideration price of about Rs 399.85 crore. The project configuration was subsequently changed to SEZ in Gurgaon over 12,500 acres and a Model Economic Township over 12500 acres in Jhajjar district.
During a review of the progress on the project, it emerged that the SEZ Project at Gurgaon was not economically unviable due to the mid-term corrections in the SEZ Policy viz., imposition of the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT), withdrawal of the Tax holiday, slowdown in the global economy, prohibitively high prices of land and other problems associated with aggregation of land through private negotiations. After this, the Chief Minister requested M/s Reliance to return the HSIIDC land.
As such, M/s RHSl offered to return the HSIIDC land and abandon the SEZ project in Gurgaon vide their letter sent to the Government in January 2012. M/s RHSl had requested for refund of the amount paid by them to the HSIIDC and reimbursement of expenditure incurred on the site, apart from interest on the said amount aggregating to Rs 1,172 crore,” informed Hooda.
He said, “The Cabinet approved the return of the land to HSIIDC, in lieu of payment of an amount of Rs 343.51 crore to M/s RHSl as against Rs 399.85 crore paid by RHSl at the time of transfer of land and the demand of Rs 1,172 crore by M/s RHSl. Claims on account of administrative charges forming price of the subject, refund of the Stamp Duty, re-imbursement of development expenditure and interest amount have not been accepted.”
The proposed Global city on this land will have an international standard Exhibition and Convention Centre as part of its eco system. The Global City is planned to be designed by integrating smart community concepts ranging from water supply, power to integration of IT services in managing various public utilities of the area, added Hooda.
Rate of tax on earthmoving equipment reduced
Haryana Cabinet approved to reduce the rate of tax on earthmoving equipment to 5 per cent under the Haryana Value Added Tax (VAT) Act, 2003. As per the VAT, the sale of earthmoving equipments including excavators, track excavators and backhoe loaders when sold to non Government dealers or persons are liable to tax at the rate of 12.5 per cent being unclassified goods, however, these goods have been made taxable generally at the rate of five per cent in many other states. Hence, to bring uniformity in the tax rate, the Cabinet granted approval for bringing earthmoving equipments in the lower tax slab of 5 per cent under the Act.
Haryana Registration and Regulation of Societies Rules, 2012 amended
As per the amended rules, every existing Society would have to apply to the District registrar for allotment of a new registration number within a period of two years from the date of coming into force of the Act without any fee or within next 12 months on payment of fee.
Amendment in Haryana Motor Vehicles Rules, 1993 approved
As per the amendments, now the preferential numbers of non-transport vehicles from 1 to 20 would continue to be issued by officer of Transport Commissioner, Haryana as per procedure and the registration numbers from 21 to 9999 of non transport vehicles would be issued by respective Registering Authorities i.e., Sub Divisional Officers (Civil).
Haryana Advocates Welfare Fund Rules, 2014 approved
The Haryana Advocates Welfare Fund has been set up to endorse various kinds of assistance including financial to practicing Advocates, their spouse and dependent children. This assistance includes in case of the death of advocate member, bearing the cost of treatment for himself, in case of serious ailments etc. The amount of financial assistance would be decided by Trustee Committee and would be given only once in three years.
Grant dual family pension from Military, civil employment to the widows
In a major relief to the families of ex-servicemen, Cabinet has decided to grant dual family pension from Military as well as civil employment to the widows of those ex-servicemen who joined civil services in Haryana after their retirement from military.