The Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) will follow due procedure in taking back 21.16 acres of land out of the 25 acres allotted to Kenexa Technologies in the IT special economic zone at Rushikonda, said APIIC Zonal Manager T.V Ramana Murthy.
When he was asked to comment on the row raging over the issue, he said: “Kenexa has been acquired by IBM, if they have any internal problems in surrendering the land, it is for them to resolve the issue. The IBM has officially agreed to surrender the land,” he said.
He said that in accordance with the IT policy of the State Government as well as the agreement entered into with Kenexa the company should have generated 2,500 jobs, that is, 100 jobs per acre of land. As the company failed to fulfil the contractual obligation, the APIIC had served a notice on the company and the IBM had replied that it was in no position to provide the promised number of jobs or to pay the land cost on pro rata basis and therefore the land would be surrendered. “Therefore, the IBM will have 3.84 acres for its Indian subsidiary, as they have generated only 384 jobs, and the rest will be taken back in accordance with the law,” he said.
It may be recalled that Kenexa Technologies Private Limited (India) MD Raghuveer Sakuru and Director Aneeta Sakuru here approached the sub-registrar at Madhurawada and submitted a letter to him expressing their opposition to the surrender of the land.
Aneeta said here on Tuesday that Kenexa Technologies Private Limited here was a subsidiary of the US-based Kenexa, which was acquired by the IBM. The merger process had not yet been ratified by the Indian subsidiary, Kenexa Technologies Private Ltd. “We have turned hostile and we have filed a petition in a Hyderabad court against the surrender of the land. The APIIC has also been impleaded in the case,” she said. Quoting reports from New York she said that the IBM had announced the closing of its acquisition of Kenexa Inc on Tuesday for approximately USD 1.3 billion.
Statutory procedure
Further, she said, the statutory procedures would have to be complied with and “it is inexplicable why the APIIC is in such a hurry to take back the land as the original objective of promoting IT in Visakhapatnam will be defeated.”
“We can be fired or ordered only by the Board of Kenexa Technologies Private Limited (India) and Kenexa Inc. (USA) has no right to do so,” Mrs. Aneeta said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We have asked them for ‘firing’ orders on Kenexa Technologies Pvt. Ltd letter head, which they have not done so far. They are doing this as a revenge, because I filed for legal remedy,” she said in the statement.
