KTR warns against sale of PSUs in TS
THE MARKET price of land alone was around `40,000 cr, which was being sought to be sold away for a cheap rate, Rama Rao said
Telangana would oppose any move by the Union government to sell away centrally-owned land, and public sector units set up on such lands, warned IT and industries minister K.T. Rama Rao.
He said the previous state governments had allotted around 7,200 acres of land for various centrally owned PSUs, which the present Narendra Modi government was trying to sell away.
The market price of land alone was around `40,000 crore, which was being sought to be sold away for a cheap rate, Rama Rao said.
In a letter to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday, Rama Rao said the Central government must either revive the units it planned to sell, or set up new units, or return the land to the Telangana state government.
The state would use such returned land for the overall development of Telangana, he said. Among the PSUs which he said the Centre was planning to sell away, were Hindustan Cables Limited, Hindustan Fluorocarbons Limited, Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited, Hindustan Machine Tools, Cement Corporation of India, and ordnance factories.
Rama Rao said when the state government sought centrally-owned land for public transport projects, the Central government was demanding that market value for the land be paid. Such being the case, the Centre had no right to sell away land given to it by the state in the past at throwaway prices, Rama Rao said in his letter.
The plan to sell the PSUs was making a mockery of the rights of states, and the explanations being touted by the Centre were nothing short of trumped-up stories attempting to justify its actions, he said.
Instead of creating employment opportunities for the youth, the Centre was busy whittling down any such possibility through such actions, he added.
All the PSUs in Telangana that the Centre wanted to sell were once the backbones of India’s path to development and the country’s economy. Any move to sell these would be viewed as a direct attempt to sell away Telangana’s properties and such decisions would be opposed, Rama Rao said.