May 24: The Mayavati government has blocked the Anil Ambani group’s plans for a multi-product special economic zone in Greater Noida citing a technical flaw in its layout.

A state cabinet meeting today decided the project would not be sent to the Centre for approval because it fails to meet a key condition in the SEZ policy.

“The (1,200-acre) plot is not contiguous. There is a road in the middle of the land,” state cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar said, explaining that the flaw was spotted by a three-member committee headed by the principal secretary (finance).

The Centre’s SEZ policy does ask for the land to be contiguous. If a single developer doesn’t have such contiguous land, the rules provide for “more than one developer” so that all their land, taken together, becomes contiguous.

This doesn’t solve the problem with the proposed Greater Noida SEZ because a road doesn’t belong to any developer.

It is to get around hurdles of this sort that the Bengal government has asked for a rethink of the new rule that the private developers must themselves acquire the land with state governments playing no role.

The Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government’s argument is that roads, being public property, can be demolished only by a government.

The Centre wants contiguity because otherwise, companies may claim tax exemption while they move their goods from one part of a special zone to another through non-SEZ land.

Shekhar said the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, to which Anil Ambani is believed to have been close, had endorsed the project flouting the Centre’s norms.

The day she won the polls, Mayavati had promised to put under the scanner every “controversial” decision by the previous government. Many believe that Mulayam’s high-profile friends, including actor Amitabh Bachchan and industrialist Subroto Roy, could now feel the heat.

Immediately after her swearing-in, Mayavati had speeded up a probe into a controversial land purchase by Bachchan in Barabanki.

“It’s a vendetta against Anil Ambani because of his proximity to our general secretary Amar Singh,” Samajwadi Party spokesman Ashoke Vajpayee said.

Amar and Mulayam have suggested to Anil Ambani that he consider going to court, Samajwadi sources said.

But a spokesman said the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group was confident of settling the matter through talks. “We look forward to discussing the matter with the Uttar Pradesh government and resolve any issue.”

The state cabinet meeting, presided over by Mayavati, has endorsed the committee report and sent it to the Centre.

The SEZ would have had easy connectivity with Agra on one side and industrially developed Noida on the other. Planned in Greater Noida’s sectors 143 and 144, it is just 20 km from another of Anil Ambani’s projects, the Dadri power plant, which too is stalled after being cleared by the Mulayam government.

Sources close to Mayavati said that on December 13 last year, the Anil Ambani group had been granted in-principle approval for a multi-product SEZ at Dadri.