Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh minister for IT Nara Lokesh is reportedly yet again at the centre of a massive scandal in the Capital that involves 66 acres of land worth Rs 300 crores. As per sources, the Revenue officers are pro-actively making moves to allot the 66 acres which belong to the NTR Veterinary College near the Gannavaram Airport here to an IT company that is close to the minister. The government had been, in stages, allotting 125 acres of land for the College campus, it is said. As part of the scandal, the officers in the University had reportedly officially notified to the government that they had no objection to return the land to the government.

In 1994, the State government allotted 66 acres of land to the Veterinary College, which is affiliated to Sri Venkateshwara Veterinary University. A livestock unit, two fish tanks, a horse shelter and a cattle shed have been built in the land by the University since then. Now, with the intervention of Nara Lokesh in the matter, a request for land allocation from the IT company is said to have been accepted by the Revenue officials in super-fast mode, so much so that the movement of files has been unusually fast in the last two months after district Collector B. Lakshmikantham is reported to have discussed the matter with the revenue officers.

According to reports, the Collector proposed to give away the land to the IT company and as an alternative, the University would be allotted land elsewhere. However, it is being said that the University officials were not in favour of awarding the land to the IT company. After the intervention of Nara Lokesh, the officials, it is learnt, had to succumb to the pressure and had accepted to give the land away. Also, the officers were asked to maintain secrecy over the matter to avoid protests from the students.

The 66 acres of land, at the rate of Rs 4 crore per acre in market value, would be worth at least Rs 300 acres, as per analysts. The land's valuation as per government records is Rs 1,57,75,000.

RTC Land Allotted To HCL

On the other side, 28 acres of land belonging to the RTC is said to have been allotted to HCL a few months ago. The land, which was adjacent to the Veterinary College's 66 acres land, was being used for RTC's Zonal Driving College. Even after Nara Lokesh laid the foundation stone for the company recently, the promised alternative land was not returned to the RTC, reports say.

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