TDP’s 99-Paise Land Policy for Cognizant: Strategic Branding or Bad Business Sense?

After TCS and the infamous Ursa Clusters, the TDP government has now reportedly decided to allot land to IT major Cognizant in Visakhapatnam at a price of just 99 paise.

According to reports, Cognizant Technology Solutions is expected to invest ₹1,582 crore to build an IT campus in the Port City, creating 8,000 jobs over a period of eight years.

The company has reportedly sought 21.31 acres of land at Kapulauppada, under the jurisdiction of the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA). The government, in response, has decided to allot the land at a nominal price of just 99 paise.

The development comes just months after IT Minister Nara Lokesh announced a similar land deal for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Digging deeper into the announcement revealed that the TDP government, under the guise of establishing Vizag as an IT hub, has been giving away prime land at ‘nominal’ prices—even to unrecognized companies. One such example is Ursa Clusters. According to reports, the Chandrababu Naidu government had laid the groundwork to allot land to Ursa Clusters at 99 paise per acre to develop a data centre. The move sparked controversy as Ursa was a relatively new company and had no experience with data centres. It was registered in Hyderabad in 2025.

As pressure on the government to cancel such deals mounted, Ursa reportedly claimed that it was purchasing land in Rushikonda at ₹1 crore per acre, and at ₹50 lakh per acre in Kapulauppada.

Beyond the potential for corrupt practices, the larger question remains: Are such policies truly aimed at improving Andhra Pradesh’s brand positioning, or are they just bad business sense?

YSRCP president and former Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has repeatedly questioned the logic behind this policy. On several occasions, he has humorously asked, “Do we even get a single idli for 99 paise these days?”

The definition of ‘nominal’ needs to be reassessed in light of the financial distress the State has been experiencing since bifurcation. Moreover, it must be emphasized that companies as large as TCS and Cognizant don’t necessarily need cheap land to set up operations.

What these companies truly require is less bureaucratic red tape, robust infrastructure, and a swift approvals process—measures that would actually help reduce operational timelines and turn job creation, a subject very dear to Nara Lokesh, into a reality.

At a press conference on Thursday, Y.S. Jagan shed light on the State’s weakening financial health. In just one year, the TDP government has reportedly borrowed 48% of the total debt accumulated by the previous YSRCP government over a period of five years—despite the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The TDP government is said to have borrowed over ₹1.61 lakh crore in the past year alone. Yet, there is no visible development in the State, nor have welfare programmes been implemented as promised.

In such a scenario, shouldn’t the government be formulating policies that don’t further burden the State’s economy?