New Pitch

WEST Bengal Housing Minister Gautam Deb knows it. The top honchos of India8217;s cricket board have realised it time and again. Be it in the business of construction or managing Indian cricket, like a top-notch chess player, Jagmohan Dalmiya can foresee his opponents8217; moves.

WEST Bengal Housing Minister Gautam Deb knows it. The top honchos of India8217;s cricket board have realised it time and again. Be it in the business of construction or managing Indian cricket, like a top-notch chess player, Jagmohan Dalmiya can foresee his opponents8217; moves.

When Deb decided to sell land at Kolkata8217;s Rajarhat New Town at a price of Rs 2.16 crore to information technology companies looking for space outside Salt Lake8217;s cramped Sector V, most investors8212;including Azim Premji of Wipro8212;baulked at the steep prices.

Dalmiya, then busy promoting an integrated leather project designed to relocate Kolkata8217;s notorious polluting tanners, carved out a piece and created an IT park. He offered IT investors 130 acres of land at Rs 87 lakh an acre, at an equally attractive location.

The result: the former czar of Indian cricket started striking deals quietly even as those who ousted him from the Board for Control of Cricket in India BCCI plotted to file charges against him.

Going flat out, Dalmiya8217;s company, M L Dalmiya 038; Co Ltd, has almost completed the sale of 130 acres at the new IT park, which has the added qualification of being designated a special economic zone SEZ. The leather complex is yet to find takers, but the IT park is almost sold out within just four months of going on the market.

THE SEZ is a part of the 1100-acre land earmarked for the development of leather complex. In 1995, following a Supreme Court ruling calling for the relocation of tanners from Tangra on Kolkata8217;s eastern fringe, the government of West Bengal chose M L Dalmiya 038; Co Ltd to set up a complex with a common effluent treatment plant on a build-operate-transfer basis.

Such was Dalmiya8217;s powers of persuasion that he convinced the state government to give him permission to convert an unused chunk of 130 acres into a SEZ where he would invite IT companies to come and launch their software and BPO centres.

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Dalmiya is now sitting on dozens of applications from IT majors who want a piece of the action. The list is a who8217;s who of India8217;s IT sector. From Cognizant Technology Solutions and Patni Computers to Mahendra British Telecom MBT and HCL Technologies, everyone8217;s ready to pay Rs 87 lakh per acre to get a piece of Bantala. Among them, Patni is a new player in Kolkata8217;s IT-scape.

Cognizant, which already has two facilities in Kolkata, has bought 20 acres, and HCL is tying up 30 acres. Others like Patni, Tata Engineering Services and the Kolkata-based tea and plastics Dhanuka group are close to a deal.

Dalmiya, who has already sealed deals for around 85 acres, is now trying to accommodate companies like Tata Consultancy Services who want big plots of upto 50 acres.

DALMIYA8217;S family business, M L Dalmiya 038; Co, has been deeply involved with projects in the state, though it has never sought the limelight. It was his cricket hat brought Dalmiya fame and glory8212;and now trouble.

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After Partition, it was M L Dalmiya who built the country8217;s largest refugee camp. The company has also built numerous educational institutes, aerodromes, cultural centres, temples, banks and offices.

If the Ansals and DLF were the signposts of Gurgaon8217;s construction activity, Dalmiya, in his own way, is a pioneer here. His communication skills and sheer tenacity have helped him survive many odds.

When the economic offences wing of the Mumbai police starts questioning Dalmiya this week, the officers perhaps will face all these qualities.