UP spanner in Raebareli automotive testing project, Amethi could be gainer

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New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi’s loss could be Rahul Gandhi’s gain, thanks to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati. The UPA government is forced to look for alternative sites for the global automotive testing centre that was to be set up in the Congress president’s constituency, Raebareli, as UP has refused to allot land for the project. Facing a 2011 deadline, the department of heavy industries has now initiated talks for land with steel PSU SAIL, which has a plant in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency. UPA sources say the Mayawati government has expressed reluctance for land allotment at Raebareli fearing political mileage to Sonia Gandhi.

In 2005, the UPA had approved setting up of seven automotive testing centres in the country by September 2011 to provide testing platforms to the automobile industry which tests a majority of its products out of India. Besides Raebareli, the projects were to come up at Ahmednagar and Pune in Maharashtra, Manesar (Haryana), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Silchar (West Bengal) and Chennai.

The two testing centres in Maharashtra have already become operational. “All the other projects are going on schedule. But we won’t be able to complete the Raebareli project in time due to the land problem,” an official said.

The project, which envisaged setting up of a national centre for testing of tractors and off-road vehicles along with a national facility for accident data analysis, would take two years to complete after land allotment.

“The Raebareli project seems impossible now as the state government is not willing to give land. So as an alternative, we are asking SAIL to give us the required land from the land base it owns at Jagdishpur in Amethi,” a senior official in the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises told FE.

The Centre wants about 125 acres out of SAIL’s vast land base of 740 acres at Jagdishpur. The land was transferred to SAIL in February this year as part of a plan to merge the sick Malvika Steel with the PSU major.