The Madurai Corporation had no records to show that it had allowed Dhaya Cyber Park, owned by Union Minister M. K. Alagiri's family, to set up a garden on a local body land adjacent to it, Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellappa has said.
He was responding to a query on the recent claim of former Deputy Mayor P.M. Mannan of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam that the civic body had permitted the cyber park to establish a lawn on eight cents of Corporation land. “We have formed a team led by the Chief Town Planning Officer M. Rakkappan to look into records for verifying the genuineness of the claim,” Mr. Chellappa told reporters here on Monday.
The Mayor wondered why such a claim was made now when the issue of encroachment on government land by the cyber park had been in public domain for several months. “The owner of the cyber park had not made any such claim when the Collector (U. Sagayam) issued notice to him with regard to encroachment six months back. All of a sudden, a party (DMK) functionary, instead of Mr. Alagiri, is making the statement. So far we have not received any written statement from the owner on the Corporation granting permission for the garden,” Mr. Chellappa said.
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The Mayor said that other buildings adjacent to the cyber park, against whom also notices for encroachment had been issued, had accepted them. “When the Corporation had not allowed them to take over its land for setting up a park, why has it given land only to Dhaya Cyber Park.” Besides, the Corporation council had not passed any resolution allowing the cyber park to take over the eight cents of land worth several crores, Mr. Chellappa said.
Stating that it had reportedly taken six months for the Corporation officials to process the request of the cyber park to give eight cents of land as claimed by Mr. Mannan, the Mayor said, “I wonder how the Corporation officials had sat on the application given by a VIP for six long months.”
“If that was the case, the file should have been cleared by several staff and officials at different levels. If we do not find any such file with us, we will lodge a police complaint on the issue,” he said.
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