The move comes at a time when the tea company, which is 65 percent owned by Triveni Group, has been refusing to pay annual rent of Rs 4 million to the government, citing illegal acquisition of the land.[break]
The government had privatized NTDC - the manufacturer of Tokla and Soktim brands of tea -- in 2000, under which 65 percent of the shares in the tea company was sold to Triveni Group for Rs 267 million. The privatization deal also included leasing of 5,196 acres (over 41,000 ropanis) of land to the tea company for 50 years on which a rental fee of Rs 4 million per year is slapped.
But since its privatization, the company has only been able to use around 67 percent of the land given on lease, as the rest have been encroached by squatters. Citing this, the company has refused to pay rents, except for the first installment of Rs 4.2 million.
“We have been trying to convince the company to pay the amount, but it has set release of encroached land as a precondition,” a reliable source of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) told Republica.
After failing to secure the rental fee despite repeated attempts, the MoF issued severe warning to the company early this year after which Rs 2.2 million was retrieved earlier this month. But the amount paid is hardly 5 percent of the total amount of over Rs 30 million that the government needs to fork out from the company.
Subash Sanghai, chairman of NTDC, told Republica that his company was willing to pay the rental fee. But for that the government must release the land illegally acquired by squatters, he said.
Of the 5,196 acres of land leased to NTDC, around 33 percent of the plots were encroached by squatters prior to the lease deal was signed, according to Sanghai.
“The government had then promised to vacate these plots for us. But that never happened,” he said. “Instead big buildings are being built on it now. Lately, different government bodies are also engaged in illegal land acquisition.”
He said around 25 ropanis of land was recently acquired by Ilam Prison. “In addition, the municipality also destroyed around 200,000 tea plants in one of the estates to build road,” Sanghai said. “Amidst this situation, how can we pay the rent to the government?”
The government has acknowledged its inability to release the land from the hands of “squatters”. “But this should not give the company the leeway to avoid paying rental amount,” the MoF source argued.
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