Express News Service
Chennai:
The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT) under then
DMK government implemented special economic zone projects without
preparing detailed project report or carrying out feasibility studies,
according to a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The report stated that the state accorded permission to ELCOT to
establish information technology eight SEZs in Chennai and Tier-II
cities at a cost of Rs 399.27 crore. This also included Rs 65.03 crore
of Union government’s Assistance to States for Dvelopment of Export
Infrastructure and Allied activities (ASIDE).
The report highlighted that the investment of Rs 399.27 crore largely
remained idle defeating the objective of formation of SEZs.
Interesting the audit conducted a study of seven of the eight SEZs and
found that ELCOT did not prepare feasibility studies for SEZs in
Madurai, Salem and Tirunelveli.
What is more SEZs at Tirunelveli and Salem were located in rocky and
mining areas while Trichy was not a second generation IT destination.
However, ELCOt went ahead with the construction of IT park without
strategy for marketing of plots.
The report said that ELCOT first issued (July 2007 to August 2009)
tender notices and awarded contracts for execution of common
infrastructure and IT buildings without any DPR for six SEZ projects.
Later it issued (April to October 2009) work orders for preparation of
DPR which violated the guidelines of ASIDE.
The report also stated that ELCOT could market only 37 per cent of the
land and 13 per cent of the IT space to the IT companies. “This was an
off-shoot of taking up ventures concurrently in all the Tier-II cities
without ascertaining the marketability of these facilities in these
areas.
No comments:
Post a Comment