Flowers may not be blooming at Talegaon but land prices skyrocketing

It should not matter to about 60 entities who had been allotted land at the Talegaon Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) Floriculture Park that their business is not going great guns. Because, these plots of land allotted at Rs 2.45 lakh an acre are reportedly quoting at Rs 25 lakh an acre now, a 10-fold appreciation.

But talk to some of the high-profile flower-growers at the park and they keep harping on how bad an investment decision it has been, with the MIDC demanding that they grow flowers on 50 per cent of the allotted land.

Former mayor of Pimpri-Chinchwad Mangala Kadam was allotted five acres of land at the park in July 2004. Nearly four years have gone by and according to Kadam it would have been better if she had invested in a land outside of MIDC. The reason - the MIDC enjoins all flower growers at the park to develop 25 per cent of the land within the first two years of allotment and 50 per cent of the land within the first three years of allotment.

Like Kadam, many others who belong to the political class of the state, feel their investments could have borne better returns if the MIDC had not enforced rules such as giving water for irrigation at industrial rates. Now, over three years after allocation, out of the 108 plots, 27 lie vacant. Here are some of the other high profile floriculturists who are finding the going tough at the Talegaon MIDC: MLA Vilas Lande’s wife Mohini was allotted four acres in June 2006. “Our three year deadline is not yet over. We have only submitted a loan proposal to the bank up till now,” said Vilas Lande.  

Anand Rayate, private secretary of Shivaji Deshmukh, chairperson of the State Legislative Assembly, founder chairman of M/s Agricos Floriculture Growers Cooperative Soceity, which owns 20 acres at the park. “The MIDC had promised cold storage, amenities and other infrastructure – all that is yet to happen. They had also promised that no other industry would come up nearby. But with business houses such as General Motors India coming up in the vicinity, labour has become costly for us. And the water charges are unacceptable,” Rayate said.

In February, the yet to be registered society of Talegaon flower growers sent a petition to the MIDC pointing why the norms ought to be relaxed. The society cited lack of infrastructure for not being able to comply with MIDC rules.

“When we took the plots, MIDC promised all basic infrastructure like auction house and cold storage, none of which has been made available. Now, they are saying we should develop the infrastructure,” said V S Jamma, general manager of Suntek Farms Pvt Ltd that has eight acres at the park.  This coupled with the one time investment of Rs 45 lakh that is required for each acre makes farming more expensive here, he said.