Hyderabad: Government warns of defamation cases against allegations on land auction
Telangana State government
Hyderabad: The State government on Tuesday said that the auction of lands at Kokapet and Khanamet were taken up in a transparent manner, while asserting that allegations against it were an attempt to malign the extremely transparent process of auction.
It cautioned of defamation cases against unfounded allegations. The government issued a five-page clarification on allegations of scam in the Kokapet land auctions leveled by TPCC president A Revanth Reddy. The note said that the auctioning agencies, HMDA and TSIIC, did their best to reach out to maximum number of potential
clients. A series of paper advertisement campaigns at the national media level were carried out for a month wherein the bid notification details were placed in the national media every alternate day.
An agency, m/s CBRE (https://www.cbre.co.in) was engaged to reach out to potential clients through emails, direct communication and by actively engaging them.
An email was sent by HMDA to Indian High Commissions / embassies located in important countries directly as well as to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which in turn had sent a copy of e-auction notification, brochures and other relevant details to various missions overseas.
Authorities said that during the pre-bid meeting held on June 25, a record number of
80 interested firms participated, making it one of the most successful pre-bid meetings. The online bid process was conducted by MSTC, an GOI agency specialised in conducting e-auctions. This was done to ensure that the entire process of auction is done in a transparent manner, without giving any scope to any possible complaint.
"Allegations levelled at this point regarding restricting the competition, less realisation of bid amount or favouring certain firms are imaginary, unfounded, not based on facts and at some level are aimed at maligning the extremely transparent process. The State and Central agencies are contemplating legal defamation cases over the unfounded allegations should they continue," the note said.