The delay on the part of the Revenue Department in revising and fixing the lease rent resulted in the non-collection of lease rent of ₹2,081 crore for the period 2000-2016 from the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) and the Madras Cricket Club (MCC), according to a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
After the Tamil Nadu government renewed the lease for government land of 7.48 lakh sq.ft. to TNCA and MCC, lease agreements were executed by the Chennai Collector with TNCA and MCC in February 2001 for a period of 20 years from April 1995 and the lease rent was fixed at ₹50,000 per annum for the first five years.
“The lease rent for the remaining 15 years was, however, not fixed by the government of Tamil Nadu. Scrutiny of records revealed that the lease rent had neither been fixed nor collected from the TNCA and MCC for the period from 2000 to 2015, due to delaying tactics adopted by the government (Revenue Department),” the report stated.
Despite requests from the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) and the Commissioner for Land Administration (CLA) during March 2007 to fix the lease rent for the period, the then Revenue Secretary didn’t fix the lease rent. Even after a proper proposal from the Chennai Collector, the Revenue Secretary, instead of fixing the lease rent, went on to appoint a Joint Committee to verify the details about the fixation of lease rent.
Eventually, the Committee submitted its report giving three options for fixing the lease rent — ₹917 crore, ₹1,834 crore and ₹34 crore by following three different methods.
End of lease
Meanwhile, the lease period ended in April 2015 following which the TNCA requested the government for renewal of the lease for 30 years.
However, no decision was taken on the matter till January 2017.
Not willing to accept the reasoning offered by the government, the report stated that the “lease rent of ₹2,081 crore was still remaining outstanding for recovery from TNCA and MCC”.
“Thus, the government of Tamil Nadu has failed to fix, determine and collect the lease rent due even after a lapse of more than 16 years of lease rent becoming due in April 2000,” the report stated and added, “It is recommended that the government should decide on priority the extent of lease rent to be fixed and recovery thereof.”
