The Telangana government has decided to dispose off all the assets of Telangana Rajiv Swagruha Corporation and constituted a High Power Committee of Secretaries to work out the modalities for disposal.
Finance Minister T. Harish Rao during the presentation of the Budget for 2020-21 announced that the government has decided to sell the non-performing assets held by institutions like Housing Board and Rajiv Swagruha.
In line with the announcement made in the Assembly, the government issued a GO here on Tuesday setting in motion the process for selling the non-performing assets held by these institutions in an open, transparent way to raise revenues.
The High Power Committee will be headed by Special Chief Secretary, Housing Department, Chitra Ramachandran and will have Principal Secretary, Finance, K. Ramakrishna Rao and Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department, Arvind Kumar as members.
The government in its order said it has decided to dispose off all the assets of Telangana Rajiv Swagruha Corporation, including the properties at Bandlaguda and Pocharam, by conducting an open auction in a fair and transparent manner. The auction should be conducted in an ‘as is where is’ basis, duly fixing the upset price by taking the recommendations of a reputed consulting firm well acquainted with the real estate market.
The government also directed the Managing Director, Telangana Rajiv Swagruha Corporation Ltd., Hyderabad to take necessary further action.
It may be recalled that the new Housing Programme Rajiv Swagruha was launched in 2007 in the combined State in all municipalities and Municipal Corporations. The Corporation had ambitiously planned for 32 projects, consisting of about 46,565 units to construct about 4 crore sft at an estimated cost of about ₹ 8,504 crore.
As many as 20 housing projects with a project cost of ₹ 6,301 crore were grounded in between 2008 and 2011 by mobilising bank loans. In the year 2011, Rajiv Swagruha faced severe financial crisis and all operations came to a stand-still. A bail-out package was recommended by Group of Ministers and a High Power Committee headed by the then Chief Secretary. A decision was taken to stop the works in ‘as is where is condition’ and agreements with the contractors were foreclosed. By that time an amount of ₹1,621.26 crore had been spent on projects which were all shut down. All projects are hence incomplete and unfit for occupation in its current stage.
After formation of Telangana, the Rajiv Swagruha Corporation cleared bank loans along with interest by paying ₹1,071.39 crore with the support of State government and released all projects from mortgage. In 2016, it had decided to allot the finished and semi-finished flats at Bandlaguda and Pocharam projects to government employees with certain guidelines and even issued a GO. But the latest GO issued on Tuesday superseded the GO issued in 2016 and paved the way for disposing off all the assets of Rajv Swagruha Corporation.
