The Uttar Pradesh government’s public accounts committee probing the delay in the ‘Sports City’ project has now ordered for the formation of a state-level panel to investigate the issue, officials familiar with the matter said.
The project envisages integrated sports facilities in group housing projects in sectors 79, 150 and 151. The state-level committee will determine the reason for the delay in the development of the project, which has around 30,000 investors, who are yet to get possession of their flats, even as a sports facility is yet to be developed even after a decade, said officials.
Earlier, the Noida authority in June formed a three-member committee to establish the irregularities in the development of the project. “The committee will be formed only by the state government since it is an order of the PAC. The Noida authority panel was shelved,” said Ishtiyaq Ahmed, chief architect and town planner of the Noida authority.
The authority in 2011-14 allotted land to developers, including Lotus Greens, Logix Group and ATS Infrastructure, under the Sports City scheme to develop world-class sports facilities.
However, in 2017-18 the Comptroller and Auditor General of India raised several anomalies in the Sports City scheme and the manner the project was being carried out, said officials of the authority. The CAG had pointed out that the developers started on the housing projects without developing the world-class sports facilities in each of the three sports city projects.
As per the terms and conditions of the scheme, the developers were supposed to develop housing on 30% land while the rest was to be used for sports facilities. The CAG said that a violation of these terms caused financial loss to the state exchequer, as the developers acquired the land at cheaper rates in the name of the sports city scheme without developing sports facilities, said officials.
The developers, however, claimed that they did not get adequate land to develop the sports facilities due to a dispute with the farmers.
In view of the CAG objections, the Noida authority had banned the sale and purchase of flats and plots under the project in January 2021, stating that builders should first develop sports facilities for public use before housing units. The project, spread across around 600 acres of land, consists of group housing, and commercial towers along with integrated sports infrastructure.
Around 10,000 of the proposed 30,000 housing units have already been sold by the developers under the scheme.
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