One of the major issues concerning availability of land for upcoming Ranchi Smart City was removed on Tuesday with the State Government inking agreement with HEC. As per the ‘deed of conveyance’’ signed, the Urban Development Department would now be getting legally the rights of ownership of the HEC land.
The agreement provides possession on 656.3 acre of land belonging to the HEC to the Department for the development of the Smart City project at the cost of Rs 743 crore. “Rs 426 crore has already being paid to the HEC by the Government against the greenfield required,” said an official of the Department present along with Minister CP Singh, SUDA Director Rajesh Sharma and CMD of the HEC Abhijit Ghosh.
“Now, there is no hurdle remaining in the way of the Ranchi Smart City. Agreement between the HEC and the Government has been strengthened further with the deed of conveyance. Work on building the Smart City would speed up with this. I hope that the ambitious work taken up by the Centre to provide world class facility to the residents of Ranchi would be completed soon with the gesture shown by the HEC,” said CP Singh on the occasion.
The SUDA Director assured that no lethargy in the works related to development of the project would be allowed. “We are closely monitoring area based development taking place in the Smart City coming up on the HEC land. All the roadblocks are removed now and we would go in a speedy manner,” said Rajesh Sharma. Multipurpose structures in the form of Jharkhand Urban Planning and Management Institute, Urban Civic Centre and Convention Centre are to come up over there.
The Minister also mentioned about poor financial health of the plant and said that the money paid to it against the land would help the HEC in overcoming its liabilities. Abhijit Ghosh also admitted about the need of finance. “Still Rs 313 crore is to be paid by the State Government against the land given to it by the HEC for the Smart City project. The money would be used to write off the company’s liabilities. If the Government wants, the HEC is ready to offer another 1000 acre of spare land with it for various urban projects coming up,” said the CMD, adding that it would help them in their financial recovery.