India’s private sector engineering and construction giant larsen and Toubro has refuted the allegations of a political party that the company had paid kickbacks to the Andhra Pradesh CM to bag the prestigious Hyderabad Metro Project and get additional land for the project from the Government.
l&T Hyderabad Metro Rail ltd managing director and CEO VB Gadgil told a Press conference in Hyderabad on Thursday that no money was paid to anyone to bag the project or the land.
“No money has been handed over. No exchange of money took place unsolicited or in any manner,” he said. Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrasekhar Rao, alleging the kickbacks to Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, had demanded that the work on Metro should be stopped.
Gadgil said that such allegations will not distract the company which was committed to commence the first phase of the project on March 21, 2015.
Expressing his pain over the allegations of corruption, Gadgil said, “This is not our culture. l&T is a national company well known for its ethics, professional and business attitude. We work all over the country and we are in the business for more than 75 years. We take pride that we are prime institution in construction and engineering.”
Work on the 72-km long Metro Rail Project on three busy corridors of Hyderabad was progressing briskly and hundreds of pillars have already come up on Nagole-Mettuguda-Begumpet, lB Nagar-Malakpet, Kukatpally-Ameerpet and Nampally stretches. With an estimated cost of `14,132 crore, Hyderabad Metro Rail is believed to be one of the biggest Private Public Partnership projects in the world.
Gadgil denied that the company was given any additional land for the project in addition to what was given under the concession agreement.
NVS Reddy, Managing Director, Hyderabad Metro Rail ltd (HMRl) also denied any wrong doing and said all documents were available for public scrutiny.
“We have courage of conviction. We have not done anything wrong. We are prepared to face inquiry,” he said. Giving the details of the land allotted for the project, Reddy said out of 212 acres required at depots, the government handed over 210 acres. The project also required 57 acres at metro stations but only 34.5 acres could be given. He said remaining land was being handed over at two alternate locations.
Reddy also clarified that the ownership of the land would remain with the government and the land along with the developed property will come back to government after 35-year concession period.
Reddy said apart from `14,132 crore main capital cost, l&T was also investing another `2,200 crore for the first phase of Transit Oriented Development (ToD) or property development.