Allow states to buy unutilised central land: Khattar to Centre
CHANDIGARH: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday urged the Union government to adopt a policy permitting the state governments to buy unutilised land of central public sector units, which are either running in losses or have been closed.
Speaking at the pre-budget consultative committee meeting of the state finance ministers convened by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi, Khattar cited examples of the idle land of central public units in Haryana.
He said 205 acre land of Cement Corporation of India in Dadri and 90 acre land of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd in Gurugram are lying unutilised. Similarly, 70- acre land of Hindustan Insecticide Ltd in Gurugram has been lying unutilised.
“The Haryana government is ready to buy these lands,” Khattar said, pointing out he had written letters to the central government several times, besides holding meetings in this regard.
Khattar said there has been only one success on this issue in Haryana with the state government purchasing the land of HMT Pinjore. Out of 446 acre land in this public sector unit, Haryana government purchased 297 acre at collector rate and 149 acre land with no construction over it at 60% of collector rate in 2018.
He said in the Union budget address, a policy decision should be announced on the issue that if a central public sector unit has been closed by the central government and a state government wants to buy the land then it will be mandatory for all public sector undertakings to sell it on collector rate plus 20%.
He said with this decision the central public undertakings will get a large amount and the burden on the Union budget will be reduced.
The CM said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of doubling the income of farmers by 2022 can only be achieved through crop diversification and by promoting processing and marketing of produce. He said the state government is making special efforts to promote diversification through ‘Jal Hi Jeevan Yojana’ to encourage farmers to cultivate maize instead of paddy.
Meanwhile, The chief minister said in the last five years more than 70,000 youths were given government jobs on merit in a transparent manner, besides giving 100 hours of paid work to the same number of graduate and post graduate unemployed youth.he said the growth rate of Haryana in 2018-19 has been 8.19%, which is more than the national growth rate of 6.81%.
He said the state government also has a proposal to set up another airport in Karnal.