A day after senior Congress leaders attacked former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections, another veteran and former Minister H.K. Patil hit out at his party colleague and Minister for Industries K.J. George for justifying a Cabinet decision to sell 3,666 acres to JSW Steel.
Mr. Patil, who uploaded documents related to the land deal and a letter requesting Mr. George not to execute the lease-cum-sale agreement on 3,666 acres with JSW Steel for setting up Vijayanagar Steel Plant at Toranagallu village in Ballari district, said the company has not paid more than ₹2,000 crore to the government and Mysore Minerals Ltd.
He told the government to recover the arrears first and then take a decision on sale of land to the steel company.
Panel report
Citing a report of the Legislature Committee on Public Undertakings on the land deal, Mr. Patil said the government has decided to sell the land at a meagre price of ₹1.22 lakh per acre without studying the actual productivity of the land. The decision to sell the land was taken without seeking advise from the law department, he said.
The lease-cum-sale deed was executed with JSW Steel in two instalments (2,000 acres in 2006 and 1,666 acres in 2007) during the JD(S)-BJP coalition government headed by H.D. Kumaraswamy.
