An unusual offer from Ikea
The Telangana government has a lot to boast about. Ikea, the Swedish furniture major, which is planning to invest Rs 10,500 crore for setting up retail stores across India, has offered to pay Rs 19.21 crore an acre to the Telangana government. Ikea had signed an MoU with the Telangana government in September, 2014 to set up a retail outlet in Hyderabad with an investment of about Rs 500 crore. The Telangana government officials say that they themselves are quite surprised with Ikea's offer. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had earlier suggested to Ikea that they tie up with rural Telangana artisans such as those from Nirmal and Pembarti. The Ikea store will be coming up in the Knowledge City at Raidurg, on the city's outskirts. In most cases of land being given to MNCs for setting up factories or stores, the practice is to lease it at a nominal rate of Re 1 per acre.
Ikea has sought 50,000 square metres of land, which amounts to 12.35 acres. So, if Ikea is actually paying Rs 19.21 an acre, it will mean that roughly Rs 237.24 crore would accrue to the Telangana government's coffers. KCR is upbeat about the whole deal but the Opposition is sniffing around to find out if there is more to the whole MoU between the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and Ikea India Pvt Ltd.