DCMS land lease scam unearthed

Nagarkurnool (Mahbubnagar): Large-scale irregularities are alleged to have taken place in leasing out the lands belonging to District Cooperative Marketing Society (DCMS) to private persons causing major loss running into several crores of rupees to the DCMS. In 2010, two DCMS officials, prior to obtaining government approval for the lease, gave the land on lease to two private individuals.

Instead of entering into five-year agreements with the parties to the lease, agreements for periods ranging from 20 years to 30 years have been entered into. The Cooperative Registrar at Hyderabad, in a rather belated reaction, is making arrangements to get the lease agreements cancelled by getting the facts unearthed. He had even issued instructions to Nizam Pasha, chairman of DCMS to cancel the agreements.

On the directions of the registrar, a three-member committee to probe into the irregularities has been constituted. The committee is chaired by Venkateswar Reddy and members Balraj and Ramulu. The committee admitted to The Hans India about irregularities taking place in giving the land on lease.

A three-member committee, set up to probe irregularities in the District Cooperative Marketing Society (DCMS), visited here on Thursday and observed several irregularities in leasing out its land and structures to private individuals.

Lease holders of the land are paying a paltry sum to the DCMS for the structures developed on it and in turn giving them on sub-lease at exorbitant rents thereby depriving the DCMS of its income. The DCMS owned 2 acres and 35 guntas of land in the Survey No 232 and 233 in front of the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer on the main road in the town.

The market value of the site stated to run into several crores of rupees. However, the officials and people’s representatives allegedly colluded with private individuals and gave the land on lease for nominal amounts.The DCMS authorities the committee said had entered into an MoU in 2010 with several private individuals to construct various structures on Build Operate and Transfer basis.

In all, 40 shops have been built on the site and a monthly rent ranging from Rs 200 to Rs 500 is being paid to the DCMS. In fact, each shop has been given on sub-lease collecting anything between Rs 6000 to Rs 8000 a month from sub-lease holders. In another incident, a function hall belonging to the DCMS – Sri Satya Sai Function Hall – was taken out on lease for Rs 6000 per month.

But, the leaseholders are charging anything between Rs 35,000 and Rs.40,000 a day from people for conducting their functions. Similarly, a journalist, Suresh Rao, took Sri Balaji Deluxe Lodge of the DCMS on lease for Rs 6000 a month and in turn gave it on sub-lease for Rs.50,000 a month. In yet another incident, a person called G Janardhan Reddy took a DCMS facility on a monthly lease of Rs.5,509 to run supermarket.

Instead of running a supermarket, he sub-leased it to management of an educational institution – Viswavikas Degree College – charging a rent of Rs.49000 a month and had taken Rs.2 lakh as advance. A nominal rent of Rs.230 per month is being paid to the DCMS for some of the shops raised on its site and the private individuals are sub-leasing them for Rs 50,000 a month.