It seems that the Centre is all set to sell off prime properties owned by Hindustan Machine Tools Limited.
A ‘secret’ document by the Union Ministry of Heavy Industries, accessed by ‘Express’, reveals the blueprint of selling of prime land held by Hindustan Machine Tools Limited in Bangalore, Kalamassery (Kerala), Hyderabad, Praga (Andhra Pradesh), Pinjore (Haryana) and Ajmer (Rajasthan) in the pretext of a revival plan proposal for HMT Limited (holding company).
The secret document is an official letter from Harbhajan Singh, Joint Secretary, Department of Heavy Industries, to K Ajay Kumar, Principal Secretary, Election Commission of India, “seeking prior clearance of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) Note on the revival of HMT Limited, Bangalore, before forwarding the note for consideration of the CCEA to the Cabinet Secretariat in view of the Model Code of Conduct which has been made operative in Karnataka via Election Commission of India notification dated 20.3.2013”.
The document states “although the headquarters of HMT Limited is situated in Bangalore, the government investment proposed in the revival plan is meant solely for the tractor production in the manufacturing plant at Pinjore”. There are seven proposals to revive HMT Limited, including “implementation of 1997 wage/pay scales and revision of retirement age from 58 years to 60 years”. But it is alleged that the sixth one, the “permission to HMT Limited to sell its earmarked surplus land for redemption of preference share capital and other Government of India loans” reveals real estate interests behind the move.
According to certain sources, the real estate lobby in connivance with top officials and certain politicians is eying prime land which is officially designated as ‘non-performing Asset/surplus land’. K Chandran Pillai, who is also president of the National Confederation of HMT Employees Union, opined that there is a larger conspiracy. “If the document is true, there is a good chance that the prime property will go to real estate players. It is highly objectionable that government is not trying to use the land for the development of the machine tools manufacturing,” he said. Incidentally, the CBI is currently investigating a land scam by top officials of HMT in Banglore.
However K K Balachandran, general manager of the HMT at Kalamassery, denied any such move. “To the best of my knowledge, there is no such move,” he said.