TV
The law is supposed to be the same for everyone. However, how it can be bent and twisted to expand one’s empire is exemplified in the case of the KIIT institution, founded by former BJD MP Achyuta Samanta.
The ongoing controversy centres on a massive building under construction in Bhubaneswar’s Chandaka Industrial Area on land owned by IDCO. The land was originally leased in 2011 to a Pune-based company, Alliance Computer Telephony India Pvt. Ltd., for setting up a software development unit.
The company acquired nearly one acre of land (plots N/57, N/58, N/59, and N/59/1) for just Rs 20.52 lakh. However, the IDCO website now shows the company as inactive. Instead, a large building reportedly constructed by KIIT has come up on the site that reportedly includes an auditorium, despite not having IDCO’s approval to transfer the land in its name.
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Local masons and security guards at the site admitted on record that the building indeed belonged to KIIT.
“Swastik has obtained the land from KIIT and subsequently handed it over to S2S. However, the construction work is of KIIT,” a mason stated anonymously.
Records further reveal that KIIT has already taken about 84 acres of IDCO land on lease through 27 allotments, but this particular plot has never been formally transferred. In fact, due to earlier instances of encroachment of 16.92 acres of IDCO land, the agency had decided in 2004 not to consider any applications from KIIT for regularisation.
Still, in 2011, KIIT managed to acquire 14 acres through transfers from other industrial units. In 2014, the CAG report raised objections, stating that by giving land to KIIT below the benchmark value, the government had caused an undue benefit of Rs 66.25 crore. Similarly, in 2013, RTI replies revealed that KIIT had occupied 11 acres of General Administration Department land and later got it regularised.
For KISS, 10 acres of forest land in Patharagadia were also encroached and subsequently legalised. These instances, critics argue, show how the law often applies differently: for ordinary citizens, it is rigid; for the powerful, it bends.
OTV tried to get reactions from Sanjay Agrawal, Director of Alliance Computer Telephony Pvt. Ltd., as well as from Shraddhanjali Nayak, KIIT’s Chief Public Relations Officer, but received no response.
Similarly, IDCO’s Managing Director did not provide a response when contacted.
