Gudur demands govt to revisit Image Towers agreement

Bharatiya Janata Party State executive committee member Gudur Narayana Reddy on Sunday demanded the State government to revisit the agreement made by the previous BRS government with the Salarpuria Sattva Group for the construction of the iconic Image Towers in Hyderabad.
Narayana appealed to the State government to protect the interests of the State by revising the agreement and demanded to hold an inquiry into the issue. He said that the government is set to lose hundreds of crores of rupees if the present agreement is honoured. It would make undue benefit to the concessionaire. Grossly comprising the State’s interests, the BRS government had entered into the agreement with the Sattva Group. By giving the lion’s share to the concessionaire, the previous regime had flouted the norms being followed while entering into any development agreement.
“In any development agreement, the landlords ensure that they get at least 40 to 50 per cent of the revenue. But in this particular agreement, the BRS government generously gifted 75 per cent of the benefit to the concessionaire for the reasons best known to it,” Gudur added.
The BJP leader said that if the present agreement is not amended, the objective of the government to develop the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector would be defeated.
The former information technology minister and principal secretary of that department should be made responsible for the loss. Also, the former government had increased the construction area to 16 lakh square feet while the government would end up with a mere 4 lakh square feet and the cost of construction has almost doubled.
 He criticised that he could not understand why the BRS government had agreed to a much lesser share though the cost of construction for each square foot was low. The towers would be constructed with 20 floors and a lot of constructed area would be available.