BHOPAL: Land allocated on lease in IT Parks in Bhopal and Jabalpur for operating information technology and allied companies/firms, has been found housing nursing college, storehouse of medicines and units manufacturing electric equipment and water pump starters, an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has revealed.
Audit of IT Parks in Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur conducted in June 2023, to ascertain business activities, construction status and land use, has revealed that 11 out of the 20 completed units were engaged in activities inconsistent with those which were mentioned in the respective lease deeds and didn’t fall into the category of activities pertaining to the IT industry.
The audit pertained to the period while the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government ruled the state.
According to the CAG report, tabled in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on Thursday, the MP State Electronic Development Corporation Limited (MPSEDC), which is responsible for developing and promoting IT Parks, didn’t act against the concerned lessees/firms.
It instead supported the concerned 11 firms by paying them Rs 3.96 crore as land subsidy and Rs 61.44 lakh as other incentives/subsidies.
One of the firms was allotted 0.87 acres land in the IT Park, Jabalpur in June 2017. Being an IT-enabled services firm, it had to carry out activities relevant to BPO-Call Centre, IT Training Centre and Data Processing Centre.
The audit (physical inspection) in June 2023, however, revealed that no such centre existed in the building constructed on the land allotted to the firm. However, a nursing college was found running in the building’s basement. The MPSEDC had paid Rs 53.36 lakh subsidy to the concerned firm.
Another firm was allocated land on lease at the IT Park in Jabalpur, for manufacturing electronic equipment and software. But during the audit, the building was found to be used to store medicines. The concerned firm had already been given Rs 15.78 lakh land subsidy.
One firm was allotted two plots spread in two acres of land at the IT Park in Bhopal in May 2018 for manufacturing LED lights and electronic product mix. The physical inspection in June 2023, however, revealed that the firm wasn’t manufacturing anything, but merely assembling the components of LED lights and bulbs. The MPSEDC had paid Rs 165.40 lakh subsidy to the firm.
Further, 101 firms, which were allotted 123 plots, aiming to create 6,536 jobs by 2023, created merely 96 jobs by 2023. In the 101 firms that were yet to commence operations at the time of the audit in 2023, even the construction work hadn’t started in 84 cases, while buildings were under construction in 10 cases. Just seven firms had completed the construction.
Despite non-completion of construction/non-commencement of operations, the MPSEDC did not act against those firms by terminating the leases and re-allotting to other interested parties/firms.
Further, the audit noticed that four firms at IT Parks in Bhopal and Jabalpur, which were shown to be functional in records, were actually locked and non-functional.
Also, it was observed during the scrutiny of records that 13.57 acres of land in two IT Parks in Bhopal and Indore were encroached, which resulted in Rs 3.62-crore loss to the government. It also deprived the MPSEDC of Rs 2.28 crore in the form of opportunity cost, which it could have earned as land premium, had it prevented the encroachment and allotted the land to the applicant firms.
The audit also observed that the MPSEDC had not prepared any long-term plan or strategic plan to develop IT Parks of the state, in line with the applicable IT Policy, due to which it didn’t set any annual target for allotment of plots/space and commencement of production/delivery of services by the firms.