Anindita Chowdhury
KOLKATA: The state land and land reforms department has wrong-footed the KMDA for giving sub-lease rights to Kolkata West International City (KWIC) at Howrah, which is being developed by the Salim group.
KMDA had asked the land department to allow sublease on the land, which it is in the process of leasing out to KWIC, but the state land and land reforms department has observed that there is no scope for sub-lease under the Land Reforms Act and hence turned down the proposal.
However, KMDA has already entered into lease agreement with KWIC for the initial 150 acres for phases I and II of the project giving them sublease rights.
KMDA had entered into an agreement with the Salim group-led consortium over developing around 390 acres of land for real estate. In the first two phases, KMDA on its own, has already leased out nearly 150 acres of land to KWIC with the provision of sublease in the agreement. However, after the recent controversy, KMDA officials decided to seek the opinion of the land
department on the issue for leasing out another 150 acres for phase III and IV.
“ The provision of sub-lease in the earlier agreement was a procedural lapse. Actually, it was thought that unless KWIC is given sub-lease rights, they will not be able to sell the units to individual owners. But then we thought that we would like to get an opinion of the land and land reforms department over the matter,” said an official of the urban development department.
In such cases, like the Bantala Leather Complex, which was developed by a private company, the state government had entered into lease agreements with the tannery owner who bought the plots.
KMDA is already under the scanner for selling the land adjoining Eastern Bypass, which was given to the agency for some other project. The urban development minister evaded questions on
whether he would submit a report to the chief minister on the issue.
