E-Paper
Just building biz castles in the air!
ALL PROMISES for a real industrial development in Lucknow are as good as dreamselling without the Lucknow Industrial Development Authority (LIDA).
ALL PROMISES for a real industrial development in Lucknow are as good as dreamselling without the Lucknow Industrial Development Authority (LIDA).
Can we develop Lucknow without Lucknow Development Authority? No. Then how can there be industrial development in the district without LIDA?
Time is running out for the State Government to commence construction work for the Lucknow Industrial Development Authority (LIDA) to be established in the Lucknow-Kanpur corridor.
The LIDA—a brainchild of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is a project taken up by the State Government for inviting large-scale industrial investment outside Noida and Greater Noida.
With the UP assembly polls barely seven months away, the State Government’s most prestigious project is nowhere into acquiring 2,000 acres of land required for the project in the Lucknow-Kanpur corridor.
The government had promised the state’s industrialists in September 2004 that the decision to constitute LIDA would not just be an empty announcement and the work for it would start “immediately”. It’s August 4, 2006 and the State Government is still stuck with procedural hurdles to acquire 2,000 acres of land covering a total of 83 villages located in Lucknow and Unnao districts for developing the necessary infrastructure for the LIDA.
The government on August 1, 2005 had announced that the land in the 83 villages earmarked for commencing work for LIDA had been acquired and a notification to this effect was issued by the UP State Industrial Development Department on the formation of an 11-member committee for ensuring smooth functioning of LIDA.
Even a year after the government announced that it had acquired the land in 83 villages on August 1, 2005, it was still trying to convince villagers in Lucknow and Unnao districts to willingly offer land for LIDA as per the latest proposals put forward by the Board of Revenue to expedite the process of acquiring land for the project.
Ever since the government had declared formation of LIDA in September 2004, it had transferred two Managing Directors at the helm of Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) who were supposed to have expedited the work for LIDA.
The government, official sources informed, had asked for two months’ extra time to complete acquisition of land for LIDA beginning August 2006 which the industry says is impossible given the complexities involved in verifying land records.
