HC verdict on sports village project on Aug 3

The Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh high court will give its judgment on the state government’s most ambitious Satgarhi sports village project on August 3.
A petition has been filed by Essel Group.

“Essel group filed a petition in the court to stop government from forfeiting the bank gurantee of the group to the tune of Rs 22 crore.

The directorate of sports had seized the group’s bank guarantee for not undertaking works to be done in the sports village,” said director of sports Shailendra Shrivastava.

On the other hand, counsel for Essel Group Naman Nagrath said, “Our plea in the court is that the government can’t encash bank guarantees as they have not fulfilled the preconditions. Government should have taken environment clearance.Since the land was not handed over, the company had difficulty in taking loan from the banks.”

Essel Infraprojects Limited (EIL) had signed an MoU with the state government in 2008 for establishing the sports city.

This ambitious project was to cost about Rs 900 crore at Satgarhi village on the outskirts of state capital.

The project was to be completed by 2012.

As had been conceptualised, Satgarhi was supposed to be the largest sports village in the country spanned in the area of 172 acre land.

The sports village would have a cricket stadium, a golf course and playing arenas for wrestling, boxing, judo, karate, wushu, billiards, snooker, gymnastics, table tennis and weightlifting.

Besides, a fitness room, football field, two hockey fields, handball court, two kho kho and two kabaddi arenas, three indoor halls for basketball and volleyball courts each, six tennis courts and four badminton courts were planned in the sports village.