Declaring that the BJP will fight the BRS government if it doesn’t cancel the ORR lease given to IRB Infra Company Limited, BJP MLA M. Raghunandan Rao said that the Mumbai-based IRB Infra might be funding the public meetings and other programmes of the BRS in Maharashtra.
Addressing the media on Tuesday at the State BJP office here along with BJP leaders Ch. Vittal and NV Subhash, Raghunandan asked IT Minister KT Ramarao and Municipal Administration Department Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar to reveal how much revenue the HMDA got from ORR from April 1 to April 30.
He said the government got average revenue of Rs 1.80 crore per day in April 2023. He said that the government got Rs 2.02 crore as revenue on April 30.
Raghunandan said that the government opened ORR lease bids on April 11 and gave a statement on April 27.
“With whom did the government hold talks between April 11 and April 27? Moreover, the IRB Infra Company Limited submitted a tender of Rs 7,272 crore. But Arvind Kumar gave a statement that the company offered Rs 7,380 crore. How will the figure increase later after the quotations were opened on April 11? In fact, four companies were qualified for submitting tenders. But H2 and H3 companies were proxies of H1. The government brilliantly managed the tender process to fool the people. The original companies who submitted tenders were H1 and H4 only,” Raghunandan said.
He said IRB Infra Company is facing a CBI probe in Maharashtra due to allegations that it killed an RTI activist.
Raghunandan said that an Adani group company had come forward to file a tender of Rs 13,000 crore, but it withdrew as the BRS government was criticising Adani wildly.
He said that the TS government did not mention a base price (more than Rs 12,000 crore) for the tender process but instead handed over the ORR lease to IRB for Rs 246 crore even though the actual revenue comes to Rs 540 crore. The State government will have to suffer a heavy loss of Rs 300 crore per month, he said and added that it is nothing but a big scam.
He also said that the State government asked Eagle Infra, the company now collecting toll on ORR, to pay Rs 517 crore per year. “After that why did the government hand over the ORR lease for 30 years to IRB Infra Company Limited for Rs 246 crore per year,” he asked.
