Sribharat rejects YSRCP claims on Rushikonda land value

Visakhapatnam MP and GITAM University president M. Sribharat on Sunday rejected allegations by the YSR Congress Party and its chief Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy over the value of government land at Rushikonda proposed for GITAM. He called the claims misleading.

Sribharat said the Rs 5,000 crore valuation for 54.79 acres had no basis. He said the land near the GITAM campus originally formed part of the Rajiv Swagruha housing project for low- and middle-income groups. The YSRCP government later changed the land use to mixed use, he said. Authorities then plotted and auctioned the land.

He cited auction data from 2022 to May 2024. Plots fetched reserve prices of Rs 60,000 to Rs 65,000 per square yard, he said. At that rate, each acre costs about Rs 19.5 crore. The total value comes to nearly Rs 1,000 crore, not Rs 5,000 crore.

Sribharat compared this with another allotment. The YSRCP government allotted nearly 11 acres near the GITAM campus to an international school in 2023. Officials fixed the price at ₹1 crore per acre, he said. He added that no construction has begun there.

He denied that authorities were giving recovered government land free of cost. The No Objection Certificate from the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation does not decide price or allotment, he said. The Chief Commissioner of Land Administration and the State Cabinet must still clear the proposal.

“GITAM has for nearly two decades maintained it will pay the price the government fixes. We are not seeking land free,” he said.

Sribharat also cited the pandemic period. The YSRCP government designated the GITAM Institute of Medical Sciences and Research as the district COVID hospital. Doctors there treated more than 3,000 patients during two waves.

GITAM has about 18,000 students and an 850-bed teaching hospital in Visakhapatnam. Sribharat said the university needs government support to expand facilities. He said GITAM aims to build skilled manpower and entrepreneurs, especially for projected IT sector growth in the State.