AP News ITC & Indu Projects withdrew from bid for HYD Knowledge City (Phase-1)
| ITC & Indu Projects withdrew from bid for HYD Knowledge City (Phase-1) |
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The Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited which
had got a written bid offer of Rs 30 crore per acre in Hyderabad
Knowledge City (Phase-1) near Hitech city at Madhapur has been forced
to scrap the whole exercise. Of the two bidders, ITC Ltd offered a record Rs 30 crore per acre, the highest for land on the city outskirts. Ten acres of land was up for grabs. The other bidder Indu Projects had quoted a little more than the filler price of Rs 18 crore per acre. APIIC vice-chairman and managing director B P Acharya told TOI that the auction had been cancelled due to ‘technical reasons’. “We are confident that the land in the area can fetch Rs 30 crore per acre. The tenders will be called for once again, perhaps next month,” Acharya claimed. When pressed, Acharya revealed that ITC had pulled out of the auction at the last minute. “Just before the tenders were to be opened on May 24, ITC sent a letter and also a telegram informing that it was withdrawing from the bid. We, however, went ahead opening the bids,” Acharya said. Why APIIC did this was something that Acharya could not explain. What had made the entire bid process look funny was the fact that the land was under legal dispute and a case was pending with the Supreme Court. As much had even been made clear by the tender documents, which said that the Solicitor General of India had given a legal opinion that it was okay to go ahead with the process. In fact, due to the legal wrangles, ITC and Indu were the only two bidders. Nobody else wanted to stick out their neck. Analysts averred that ITC managers had not done their homework properly and had also overbid for the land. “At the last moment they realised this and hastily withdrew,” an analyst said. Indu withdrew from the bid the moment it realised that the company would be saddled with the land. ITC’s official spokesman said that his company withdrew because of the legal dispute. “We had expected the case to be settled before the bidding. Since it was not, we pulled out,” he said.
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