Yamuna expressway authority rejects Jaypee Group’s proposal

The board of Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (Yeida) rejected Jaypee Group’s proposal of offering land in lieu of money that the realty firm defaulted to pay for the Formula One circuit and its sports city project.

“The board made detailed deliberations about the Jaypee Group’s proposal of offering the land in lieu of defaulted money of around 1,000 crore. The board rejected the proposal and decided that realty firm should itself sell the land and clear the dues. The Jaypee Group will have to clear the financial dues in order to get its plot back as we had cancelled the allotment in 2019 after it defaulted on payments,” said Arun Vir Singh, chief executive officer, Yeida.

Jaypee Sports International Limited (JPSI), a subsidiary of Jaypee Group, was allotted land for the Budh International Formula One Circuit in 2011 for developing the race track. However, the company defaulted on land cost payments to the tune of 1,000 as a result of which on December 21, 2019, Yeida cancelled the land allotment.

The Jaypee Group was supposed to pay the land cost in 20 instalments, but it defaulted on the payments and failed to reply to repeated notices sent by the Yeida that allotted around 1,000 hectares on which the Formula One Circuit and other projects are built.

Yeida started the process of issuing a global tender to auction the property and recover its dues, but JPSI filed a petition before the Allahabad high court, seeking a stay on the cancellation of allotment and the sealing on the grounds that Yeida could not provide basic services such as sewer connections and water supply, which it had promised.

“If the Jaypee Group will sell the land and then pay our dues then we will restore the cancellation of the land as per the laid down process. As per the process, the Jaypee Group will have to pay 10% of total defaulted amount as a fee to become eligible for restoration of the land allotment. We have decided to allow Jaypee Group to sell the land because we want the realty firm to get its land back, complete its realty projects of around 3,200 flats in the sports city project and also make payment towards the farmers’ compensation,” said Singh.

“The Jaypee Group still has a huge portion of the allotted land lying vacant and can be sold out to raise funds,” added Singh.

The officials of the Jaypee Group did not respond to calls and text messages seeking comment on Yeida’s board decision.