Against 1.15 lakh acres of land identified for its land bank, the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) notified 50,887 acres while the actual acquisition was only 21,486 acres, said the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report on economic sector audit for year ended march 2017.

“KIADB did not have a perspective plan for carrying out its functions. Action plans for acquisition of lands as envisaged in industrial policies of 2009-14 and 2014-19 were not prepared,” the report said.

Techno-feasibility study reports should accompany land acquisition proposals. However, 42 land acquisitions proposals were approved from 2011-12 to 2016-17 without the techno-feasibility studies and comparative evaluation of alternatives. Unplanned acquisitions led to idle inventory of 6,593 acres of developed land valued at ₹6,000 crore and 30,507.57 acres of undeveloped land valued at ₹3,172 crore.

CAG pointed out that KIADB with no timeline fixed for completion of acquisition process was holding 28719.29 acres of land under preliminary notification for two to 15 years.

KIADB did not consider environmental clearance as a prerequisite and had obtained clearances for only 31 industrial areas as against 62 industrial areas developed during 2011-12 to 2016-17. Also shocking is that KiADB had not constituted a full-fledged environment monitoring cell and status of compliance to various environmental clearance conditions was not on record, the report said.

comment COMMENT NOW