Thaindian News

By Damanjeet Kohli

New Delhi, Jan. 7 (ANI): Union Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said that government will help the non-resident Indians (NRIs) who invested money in Maytas hill country project, which came to a halt when Satyam scam was exposed.

Addressing the ‘Property related issues of NRIs/ PIOs’ conference here Khurshid said Maytas Hill Country project is a prestigious project of Maytas Properties, a company promoted by the family of Satyam Computer Services Limited.

According to hill country customers, Maytas properties has collected approximately 600 crores. But the construction has come to grinding halt since January 07, 2009 when Ramalinga Raju confessed to his accounting fraud.

Khurshid feels that the issue has humanitarian concern as well and so it needs to be taken care of.

“First problem they faced was due to Satyam. We have solved problems related to Satyam and then Maytas infrastructure problem was before us and we solved it. The smallest company is Maytas property. This is not public company, it is private,” Khurshid said.

“There is limited public interest and there are humanitarian concerns associated with it. Lot of people with trust invested their money. We feel it is our duty to help them, ” he added.

Protestors wore black T- shirts with ‘Maytas Victims’ written on them and held placards at the conference.

According to them, majority of them have already paid the full amount towards the purchase of the flats and were paying EMIs in the range of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 100,000 without taking possession of them.

They said the flats were not ready and in some cases were non-existent.

Sandeep Khurana, Mahindra Satyam computers said: “Today it’s being celebrated as NRI day and it is also one year anniversary of the Satyam -Maytas scam. So right from that day till today for full one year there has been not a single brick laid. But none of the banks…they all the 8-10 banks including public sector banks, none of them have given any relief in terms of EMI’s.

“They know fully well that this is beyond individual control. This is not what we can influence. The government already has nominee on board. So they did not give us any relief,” he added.

Further, they demanded a bail out packages for Mytas to help them move into their houses.

Khurshid said the Stayam is back on its feet and is looking towards a bright future.

“Within six months we were able to turn Satyam around put it back on its feet and as you would have seen in the newspapers today that cash flow of Satyam has now turned positive and Satyam is now once again looking towards a bright future,” Khurshid said

“There are some issues and some problems which are still to be resolved. But the important thing is that Satyam is back on its feet,” he added.

Satyam, India’s fourth-largest outsourcer was in trouble when its founder Ramalinga Raju quit as chairman, following falsified profits for years and non existent $1 billion of cash and bank balances.

The government dissolved Satyam’s board and appointed six directors to save Satyam and its 50,000 employees. The new board has appointed Goldman Sachs and Avendus, an Indian investment bank, to help find potential investors. (ANI)