Even as the allotment of 21 acres of land to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for just 99 paise per acre at Visakhapatnam by the Telugu Desam Party-led coalition government in Andhra Pradesh has triggered a major debate in the industrial and political circles, a similar offer made to a newly-formed US-based data centre company Ursa Clusters Private Ltd in the same city has kicked up a big controversy.
The State Investment Promotion Board of Andhra Pradesh at its meeting chaired by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on April 10 approved allotment of 3.5 acres of land at the IT Park, Visakhapatnam to Ursa Clusters Private Limited.
The Board also approved allotment of 56.36 acres to the same company at Kapulappada, Visakhapatnam.
The government said the company had come forward to set up an AI Data Centre with Rs 5,728 crore. Both the pieces of land are learnt to have been allotted at a nominal rate.
What has baffled the critics is that Ursa Clusters signed back-to-back agreements with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
At the World Economic Forum in January this year, the Telangana government signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Ursa Clusters, to establish a 100 MW AI-powered data centre hub in Hyderabad. The total investment was estimated at Rs 5,000 crore.
What is surprising is that the company’s India office at Hyderabad was incorporated on February 12. So much before the company was incorporated, the Telangana government signed the MoU with it.
Within two months, the Andhra Pradesh government, too, allocated prime land worth approximately Rs 3,000 crore in Visakhapatnam to Ursa.
The Indian company of Ursa Clusters LLP was incorporated with a paid-up capital of just Rs 9.1 lakh by Pendhurthi Vijay Kumar, a manager at GMR Airport in Shamshabad, and Satish Abburi, a software engineer based in the US.
According to some media reports, its registered address is a flat (No 705, Ektha Basil Heights, Kothaguda, Hyderabad), which appears to be a residential apartment.
Locals report it looks nothing like a corporate office; there are even clothes drying on the balcony. The presence of a family living there adds to suspicions.
Opposition parties allege that under the guise of TCS, the Chandrababu Naidu-led government is handing over valuable land at throwaway prices to its favoured private entities.
The fact that Ursa doesn’t even have a working office, phone number, or official website adds further fuel to the allegations.
The big question is: why was such a massive project, potentially worth thousands of crores, handed over to a company without any track record?
Interestingly, a multinational company like TCS was allotted only 21.16 acres, while Ursa was granted nearly 60 acres under the premise of setting up a data centre.
The move has raised eyebrows, with critics calling it a classic example of “Babu-mark business” — a term referring to backdoor dealings.