Bengaluru: The Karnataka government is locked in a conflict with the Centre over the ownership of acres of prime land valued at thousands of crores currently held by watchmaker Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT), a public sector company.
H.D. Kumaraswamy, the Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel, has said the 599 acres of land on the outskirts of Bengaluru claimed by the Karnataka Forest Department belongs to HMT, which had all the documents to support its claim. Meanwhile, Eshwar Khandre, Karnataka’s minister of forests, wants to reclaim the land.
ThePrint explains what the tussle is all about.
When was the land given to HMT
HMT was conceived in 1953 and began its first machine tool factory a year later in Bengaluru. Under former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the guidance of the erstwhile Maharaja of Mysore and famous civil engineer M. Visvesvaraya, the factory began operations with its signature watches, earning it the moniker of ‘the timekeeper of India’. According to Kumaraswamy, the Karnataka Revenue Department gave the forest land to HMT in the 1960s. The company paid Rs 7 lakh for the land.
He said HMT was posting a profit of around Rs 270 crore a year by the 1970s but its downfall began in 1984 when Titan, along with the Tata Group, poached 350 of its engineers in one night. Once a profit-churning industry, HMT is now struggling with finances and funding day-to-day operations, Kumaraswamy added.
According to the company’s 2022-23 annual report, its revenues from operations stood at Rs 51.59 crore compared to Rs 12.58 crore in 2021-22. It added that sales rose from Rs 175.74 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 203.81 crore during this period.
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What triggered the controversy?
Eshwar Khandre, Karnataka’s minister of forests, issued an order on 11 August to recover nearly half the 599 acres of land, triggering a standoff between Kumaraswamy and Khandre.
Khandre wants to convert the vacant lands into parks and other green spaces to provide more lung space for the residents of Bengaluru. Kumaraswamy, the state president of the Janata Dal (Secular), says he wants to revive HMT and restore it to its glory days.
Both have accused the other of trying to sell off the lands to private parties or real estate developers. “A committee formed to look into the land given to HMT…has asked the Advocate General (of Karnataka) to study the case and draft the reasons for seeking it back,” said one person aware of the developments, requesting anonymity.
What is the dispute about
According to the state Forest Department, HMT was given large parcels of forest land in the early 1960s and a significant chunk of this has been sold off to private and public organisations.
According to Kumaraswamy, the land given to HMT was not free. Various parcels of land for the factory were acquired between 1958 and 1970 in villages like Peenya, Mykala Channenahalli and Jalahalli, as well as other places around north Bengaluru.
In December 1963, HMT paid Rs 4.40 lakh for 185 acres granted by the state. A second parcel of 77 acres was granted in April 1965 for which HMT paid Rs 1.80 lakh. Around 201 acres of land was given to HMT as a gift around the same time “absolutely forever”.
However, The Forest (conservation) Act, 1980, has no legal provision for donating forest land before it is denotified. The then deputy commissioner of Bengaluru transferred the land to HMT through a donation deed in 1963, but no gazette notification was issued, according to the Karnataka government.
According to Kumaraswamy, over the years, the company sold this land with the Union government’s permission to various entities, including the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL). On 31 March 2017, the Modi-led cabinet approved the transfer of 208.35 acres of HMT land in Bengaluru and Tumakuru to ISRO for Rs 1,194.21 crore and another one-acre parcel of land to GAIL for Rs 34.30 crore.
According to the 11 August Forest Department order, the land was declared as forest land under the Forest Act of 1878, and is worth thousands of crores. It says the land is being illegally sold by the Union government-owned HMT to various government departments, organisations and private individuals.
The Forest Department says that of the 599 acres of forest land, 281 acres remain vacant and should be immediately reclaimed. Legal action should be taken to reclaim the remaining land afterward.
Khandre added that in November 2018, C.K. Mishra, the then secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, had written to the Karnataka government, seeking permission to sell the land. He says Karnataka did not give its approval as the land came under the State Forest Act of 1980.
In 2020, the Karnataka Forest Department filed an interlocutory application (IA) in the Supreme Court, seeking permission to denotify land from HMT. This, Khandre said, did not have the sanction of the then cabinet and that he directed officials to withdraw this IA.
Khandre said that no forest land can be given without conversion and the approval given by the then deputy collector and revenue department does not hold water since it belonged to the forest department. The Karnataka Forest Department claims that nearly 160 acres was sold off by HMT between 1997 and 2004 for over Rs 313 crore.
Khandre now wants to establish authority over all 599 acres given to HMT and, as the first step, recover 281 acres of vacant land and convert it into a Lalbagh-like park. According to him, the vacant land is valued at over Rs 10,000 crore.
Kumaraswamy said a sub-committee in 2017 had said the land was not a forest and had urban settings, including roads, businesses, hospitals and government offices, among other commercial establishments.
Alleged motives behind the claims
Both Khandre and Kumaraswamy have accused each other of selling off the remaining land to real estate developers. The Union minister believes he can convince the prime minister to help revive HMT and the Karnataka government’s move is to impede his vision.
Khandre said he wants to see HMT being revived but is firm that the land belongs to the Karnataka Forest Department and the aim of retrieving the vacant land is to prevent it from being lost to private developers.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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