Telangana Government faces uphill task to crack whip on erring private parties

Hyderabad: Even as the government has announced taking back of the tourism properties leased out to the private parties and are yet to take shape, the officials said that it will not be an easy task as they said that they could only take those properties for which the works were not started yet by cancelling the agreement.

The State government had recently decided to take back the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation (TSTDC) properties given on lease to private companies, which failed to take up projects and also failed to pay rents even after 18 years of agreement. According to the official sources there are seven such companies which were served notices for non-compliance of the agreement and non-payment of lease amount.

According to sources, the Secunderabad Golf Course Project Pvt Ltd had taken 130 acres on lease in 2004 for 33 years so as to construct a golf course. The organisation did not take up the project during the last 18 years. They even did not pay the lease amount, resulting in a huge loss to the corporation. When the corporation issued notices to the organisation it approached court, the sources said. A senior official said that as per the agreement the company did not take up construction hence the agreement can get cancelled.

The official informed that there were some companies which were running their projects like Jal Vihar, Snow World and others. "Some of the company's representatives have approached after issuing them the notices. Some of them have sought relaxation in the payment of fees because of lack of business during the last two years because of Covid-19 pandemic," said a senior official.

It may be mentioned here that the Tourism Minister V Srinivas Goud had directed the officials to take action against the companies which do not follow the lease agreements. Many of the agreements were entered during the undivided Andhra Pradesh and were not yet implemented. A company from Bengaluru, which took prime land at Yatri Nivas for the project failed to start. The official said that they would be following the court's direction in case of the lease agreement violations and act accordingly.