No industry will be shut: Raman

NOIDA: Nearly 100 Noida-based industries, which feared immediate closure following a court order directing them to pay Rs 300 crore as fine and shut down operations heaved a sigh of relief on Monday. They were assured by Noida Authority chairperson and CEO Rama Raman that the Authority and the district administration were working to resolve the issue.
According to administration officials, the district magistrate (DM), in accordance with court orders, had slapped a penalty of nearly Rs 300 crore on the factories for using about 33 acres of land in sectors 65 and 67 originally designated for public utility in Noida. It was accompanied by eviction orders from the tehsildar of Dadri court. Affected industries include units manufacturing garments, engineering, electronics, plastic, etc.
The trouble began when the Authority acquired land in villages Khera Choganpur and Mamura. While, in accordance with the deal, it compensated the villagers with equal packets of land elsewhere or money, it never bothered to compensate the district administration for those pockets of contiguous land that belonged to the district fisheries and animal husbandry departments. From 2005 onwards, the Authority leased this land to the industries on a 90-year contract. "In all these years, the land was not recovered for resumption by Noida Authority," said Vipin Malhan, president of Noida Entrepreneurs' Association (NEA).
Malhan, who led a delegation of industrialists on Monday, claimed at the end of their meeting with Raman that the problem had been amicably resolved.
"Raman told us industrialists were not at fault, as it was the Authority which had allotted the land to them, while not compensating the district. He assured us no industry will be shut down in the sectors," said Malhan, adding that Raman had also promised to resolve the matter with the Dadri tehsildar at the earliest.
As an interim measure, Malhan said Raman has also asked industrialists served eviction notices to file restoration appeals in the Dadri tehsildar's court. "Raman assured us the Authority will look after our interests. It, too, will file a petition in the Dadri court to safeguard industry interests," said a happy Malhan.
While the Authority was represented by additional chief executives P K Agarwal and Rajesh Prakash, along with deputy superintendent of police Harshvardhan Bhadoria, the NEA was represented by its phase 1 vice-president Dharam Veer Sharma, phase III vice-president Mohammed Irshad, general secretary V K Seth, Inderpal Khandpur, Rajan Khurana and others.
The DM's orders on Friday followed directions of the Dadri tehsildar to free the land from 'encroachment', after the GB Nagar administration failed to comply with earlier orders of the Allahabad high court. "The high court had in March asked the administration to conduct a survey and take action if necessary, following a PIL by Tikam Singh, a Khera Choganpur villager, who wanted to enquire if the district departments had been compensated by the administration for the land acquired in his village," said Dadri sub-divisional magistrate Rajesh Yadav. The Dadri tehsildar had, subsequently, submitted a report with the high court, stating the district departments had indeed not been compensated for the land the Authority had allotted to industries.
"Following the tehsildar's orders, the administration sent out notices to the firms to clear the 'encroached' land, pay the penalty or face eviction," explained the SDM. The notices were issued under Section 122b of the Zamindari Abolition & Land Reforms (ZALR) Act, 1950.
Noida Authority officials on Monday said they had received the district administration's notice and applied for resumption (compensation with alternative land or money) to the UP government. "We are conducting an inquiry. Our legal department is also preparing the reply to the administration's notice," said P K Agarwal, additional CEO, Noida. "We will resolve the issue soon, as the industrialists are our allottees, not encroachers," he added.