Chief Secretary submits report on HMT land deal

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 8 (UNI) A Committee headed by state Chief Secretary P J Thomas today submitted its report to Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan on the controversial land deal involving the public sector Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) and a Mumbai-based company.

The report will come up for discussion at the next Cabinet meeting, official sources said here.

A controversy arose after the sale of 70 acre of land by the HMT to the HDIL (Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd).

Though the company claimed it would set-up a 'Cyber City' at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore, the State IT Department argued that the HDIL had not put forward any proposal before the government for setting up IT infrastructure.

Several political parties also alleged the land given free of cost to the HMT had been sold to the real estate company for other purposes and urged the government to take steps to cancel the deal.

UNI CR DS GC1452