NOIDA’s Sports City: Plots worth Rs 4,500 crore allotted to ineligible entities, says CAG

PTI, Dec 18, 2021, 7:41 PM IST

Representative Image

New Delhi: Plots worth Rs 4,500 crore for NOIDA’s Sports City were allotted to entities who did not meet the technical eligibility criteria of stipulated net worth, turnover, or past experience, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report revealed.

The CAG’s performance audit report on ‘Land Acquisition and Allotment of Properties in New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA)’, Uttar Pradesh government, which was tabled in the Assembly on Friday, also flagged that the Sports City scheme was launched without approvals.

New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA), in deviation from its primary mandate of development of an industrial township, allotted four plots measuring 33.44 lakh sqm during 2011-16 for the integrated development of four sports cities to hold marquee sports events like National Games, Commonwealth Games and Asiad Games, it noted.

Three golf courses of nine holes each and one international cricket stadium were envisaged in the sports cities along with infrastructure for other games, the report stated.

At the time of the launch of the first sports city scheme in 2008, there was no category of sports city in the Master Plan-2021. It was included in Master Plan-2031 which was approved by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2011, the audit showed.

”The envisioned sports city infrastructure necessitated detailed specifications for the facilities with the involvement of serious developers for executing the projects. However, NOIDA failed to lay down any specifications or parameters for the level of intended sports infrastructure,” the CAG noted.

”The technical eligibility criteria specified for the developers were based on real estate development rather than the development of sports infrastructure,” it added.

Moreover, the technical eligibility criteria of the net worth of Rs 80 crore to Rs 125 crore was also not commensurate with the value of the sports city plots which ranged between Rs 837 crore and Rs 2,264 crore, it said.

”The lacunae in policy were further accentuated by failures in due diligence. In three out of four allotments, plots worth Rs 4,500 crore involving an area of more than 25 lakh sqm were allotted to ineligible entities who did not even meet the technical eligibility criteria of stipulated net worth, turnover or past experience,” the auditor noted as it flagged deficiencies in screening and allotments.

The actions of NOIDA concerning the Sports City have essentially entailed approval for and development of residential or group housing projects, with ”scant focus” on the primary goal of creating a world-class sporting infrastructure, it remarked.

”Resultantly, no sports facility has been developed in these Sports City plots so far (December 2019) even after eight years of the roll-out of the initial scheme. ”There is a clear case for responsibility to be fixed by the government for the actions on part of NOIDA which has effectively sealed the possibility of creation of a Sports City of international standards, as was envisaged,” the report stated.

According to the report, the Sports City scheme provided for land use of a minimum of 70 per cent for recreational or sporting use and the rest of the area was allowed for residential, commercial and recreational use.

This translates into dedicating 559 acres out of the 798 acres proposed allotment in the four plots earmarked for the development of Sports City.

The condition of the brochure also provided that ‘without obtaining completion certificate, the lessee shall have the right to sub-divide the allotted plot into suitable smaller plots as per planning norms of NOIDA only for the area available for residential and commercial use’, it added.

The auditor observed that despite the condition of sub-dividing the plots into smaller plots for area available for residential and commercial use only, NOIDA approved during the period 2012 to 2017 sub-division of the entire plot which violated the underlying theme as well as the approved conditions of the brochure.

As such, any sub-division should have been approved for only 30 per cent of the land which was to be used for residential and commercial development.

”Thus, against the area of 10,03,257.9 sqm (247.90 acres) eligible for sub-division, the entire area of 33,44,193 sqm (826.34 acres) was sub-divided into 81 parts against the conditions of the scheme. The 559 acres of land earmarked for sports infrastructure was in effect sub-divided into 34 sub-divisions,” it added.