From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
 
Panaji, May 31: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has hinted of a criminal case in alleged scam in the land allotment to set up Special Economic Zones (SEZ) by state-controlled Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).

Parrikar told reporters on Wednesday, May 30 that the IDC’s Board of Directors (BoDs) meeting , which will be held soon, will take up the issue of having criminal investigation into the land allotment for various firms to set up SEZ at a throw away prices.

The Chief Minister will be heading IDC, after dissolving the earlier BoD, formed during the erstwhile Digambar Kamat tenure. Parrikar, when he was leader of opposition, had filed private complaint against IDC for allegedly indulging into fraud by lowering the rates of the industrial plots given for various firms to set up SEZs.

Goa government, after inviting the investors to have SEZs in the state, had scrapped the policy on June 15, 2009 leaving the investors of these special industrial enclaves into lurch.

In all 12 SEZs were scrapped by the state government, while three are still pending denotification with the union government.

He said that vast tracts of lands which are locked in the SEZ, should be freed through a government process. “We can have across the table consultation with the firms and free 50 per cent land allowing them to set up industries, not SEZs, in the rest of the plot area,” the chief minister said.