Noida: Sandeep Sood paid a premium for a sprawling 3-BHK apartment at Gaur Sportswood in Noida sector-79 in 2017. He was promised a grand view of golf courses, cricket stadiums, and arenas—all part of Noida’s planned Sports City. Eight years on, he sits on his 11th-floor verandah gazing over an abandoned ground and counting its scraggly bushes.
“The MLA, MP, Minister of Housing… everyone has come here and promised a resolution, but they’re invisible after election time is over,” Sood said.
The 50-year-old executive at a multinational corporation is among the thousands of apartment owners in Noida’s sectors 78, 79, and 150, who bought into the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority’s (NOIDA) plan to build a world-class Sport City. In the grand vision, residential and commercial complexes would rub shoulders with two golf courses, a cricket stadium, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a world-class sports centre.
The Sports City scam is a story of a nexus of builders and authority officials – Anu Khan, lawyer and president of Noida Extension Flat Owners and Members Association.
That dream has long since soured. Instead of putting Noida on the map, it has become a stain in the city’s 50-year history. All that is left to show for it is a board by the Noida Authority warning people against trespassing. And the fancy apartments with names like ‘Stadia’, ‘Sportswood’, and ‘Golf View’. The 798-acre Sport City is a Rs 9,000 crore scam mired in FIRs, High Court cases, and CAG reports. It’s also under investigation by the CBI for criminal conspiracy, forgery, and criminal breach of trust, among other charges. The Noida Authority officials and three developers are named in the CBI’s FIRs filed in March this year.
“A Sports City would have brought numerous significant benefits to Noida, positively impacting its economy, infrastructure and overall reputation,” said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO-India, South East Asia, Middle East & Africa, of the real estate services firm, CBRE. “The hub could have drawn in global sports brands, academies, and related enterprises.”
Young children travel far and wide to receive sports coaching in Noida, where there is no good infrastructure. No land has been allotted for sports, and this project was very important to promote sports in the city – Abhishek Dhyani, Grassroots Cricket Academy, Noida.
With the Sports City still not completed 20 years after it was first proposed, homeowners have not been able to register their flats or form residents’ welfare associations. Instead, they are buried under a mountain of cases at the Allahabad High Court. ThePrint reached out to Noida Authority officials, but they declined to comment, stating that the matter is sub-judice.
“The Sports City scam is a story of a nexus of builders and authority officials,” alleged Anu Khan, lawyer and president of Noida Extension Flat Owners and Members Association.
“Thousands of home buyers are suffering because of this scheme. It was going to benefit the residents and their children by training them at world-class facilities. Everyone was excited about this project, but nothing has come of it in more than 15 years.”
Homebuyers stuck
As many as 32,000 homebuyers have been affected by the scam. One of the residents, who did not want to be named, bought a flat in Civitech Society in sector 79, in the hopes of enrolling his daughter for a sports programme. But that dream is long gone.
“The price of the plot today is Rs 1.67 crore, but if I go to sell it, the builder will charge me a significant transfer fee,” he told ThePrint.
Some of the flat owners have approached the Allahabad High Court and requested directions for the Noida Authority to register their flats. The court has called the mess in the Sports City project a “dirty builder authority nexus”.
A Sports City would have brought numerous significant benefits to Noida, positively impacting its economy, infrastructure and overall reputation – Anshuman Magazine, CBRE.
Some buyers still haven’t been granted occupancy of their flats, while others have been living in these projects for decades—with signed stamp duty papers gathering dust in their cupboards.
“I was living in Gurugram when I bought this flat. We were told 70 per cent would be a sports area, and we came here with those expectations. I bought the flat at a much higher price. I feel really cheated,” said lawyer Pankaj Upadhyay, a resident of Gaur Sportswood.
It was a project that many residents, especially sports instructors, were looking forward to.
“Young children travel far and wide to receive sports coaching in Noida, where there is no good infrastructure. No land has been allotted for sports, and this project was very important to promote sports in the city,” said Abhishek Dhyani, who runs Grassroots Cricket Academy in Noida sector 78. The few academies that do exist in the city are expensive.
“So many parents tell us they cannot afford Rs 3,000-4,000 a month for cricket coaching. If there were a proper sports infrastructure here, sports coaching would have been more accessible,” Dhyani added.
How it all went wrong
In 2004, as the city was turning 25 years old, the Noida Authority decided to host the Commonwealth Games. They even wanted to be ready for the 2020 Olympics if India won the bid.
But the progress on the project was slow. It was only by December 2010 that the Authority fixed the reserve price of Rs 11,500 per square metre and started inviting bids from builders and developers.
I was living in Gurugram when I bought this flat. We were told 70 per cent would be a sports area, and we came here with those expectations. I bought the flat at a much higher price. I feel really cheated – Pankaj Upadhyay, lawyer.
A 2017 Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report elucidates how the project was designed to fail, costing the exchequer losses to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore.
The Noida Authority has no business making a sports city, according to CAG.
“NOIDA had the primary mandate for the development of an industrial township. Development of sports was not included in any of the functions mandated to NOIDA under the UPIAD Act, 1976,” read the report.
The Sports City project was launched in four development schemes between 2011-12 and 2015-16. Four allotments of 32,30,500 square metres of land were approved. Sectors 78, 79, and 150 would have a tennis centre, a 9-hole golf course, a multipurpose sports hall, a cricket academy, and a senior living facility. While another sector was allotted an area of 5 lakh square metres to develop an international-level cricket stadium.
The bids went to three developers who were allotted land at a discounted price, according to the CAG report. More than 32 lakh acres in sectors 78 AND 79 were allotted to Xanadu Estates. Two other companies, Logix Infra and Lotus Greens, won the bids to develop infrastructure in two different projects in sector 150. Xanadu Estates had to develop the sports infrastructure in sectors 78 and 79. The responsibility of building an international cricket stadium was given to ATS Builders.
Instead of a Sports City, I just get to see a bunch of bushes – Sandeep Sood, MNC executive.
The builders who had won bids to develop the Sports City at subsidised land rates never intended to build the required infrastructure there, Allahabad High Court later noted. Though the project was meant for a consortium of companies, two lead builders created a web of firms to pose as one. As a result, the burden of the huge project fell largely on two companies operating behind a corporate veil. They then sub-leased the allotted land to other builders, the court noted.
“The sports city is divided into four parts and allotments happened in three different points of time, 2011, 2013 and 2015, and the builders were supposed to finish their projects in three years, and they had to spend Rs 410 crore on the sports centre. But it so happened that they subdivided land and never built the necessary sports infrastructure,” a senior official at the Noida Authority said on the condition of anonymity.
Grant Thornton, a consultancy firm, was brought on board to prepare the plan for the Sports City. The firm recommended a minimum eligibility of Rs 100 crore net worth and Rs 400 crore turnover over the last three years for firms to be eligible to win the bid. But Noida Authority reduced the eligibility to Rs 80 crore net worth and Rs 200 crore turnover, according to the CAG report. The Authority countered that such relaxation was given because nobody bid for the project in 2008. The CAG called this relaxation ‘baseless’.
“It is evident that NOIDA did not take due cognisance of the scale of projects and also showed willingness to allot plots to applicants whose financial strength was inadequate,” read the CAG report.
It went on to state that the Noida Authority never gave any specifications on the kind of sports infrastructure that had to come up. Officials never consulted with the Sports Authority of India or any specific sport federations, while envisioning the Sports City either. Builders who had been enlisted to make the Sports City didn’t even have any related experience.
“That’s how things happen in Noida, Ram Bharose (on god’s will). Why didn’t the Noida Authority approach SAI or anyone else is for them to answer,” a real estate developer in Noida said on the condition of anonymity.
The CAG’s report also concluded that the developers did not meet the financial health requirements for building a Sports City, and received favourable allotment. Through holding companies, account balances of subsidiary companies were shown to be inflated, to win the Sports City bid, CAG said.
“The allotments for Sports City plots were clearly made to applicants who failed to qualify even the mandatory technical criteria. Their financial bids should not have been entertained at all, let alone been given allotments. Projects intended for international-level sporting infrastructure involving huge tracts of land were thus handed over to ineligible entities,” the CAG report said.
Residential projects come up
One of the basic tenets of the Sports City project was that residential and commercial buildings would be limited to 30 per cent of the allotted land, while the rest would be left for sports infrastructure.
The very year that they won the bids, the builders started sub-leasing acquired land to other wholly-owned companies.
The wholly-owned companies further sub-leased the land. The sector 150 land was subdivided into 12 companies, of which six didn’t even exist at the time of subleasing. Sectors 78 and 79 were divided into 23 parts.
The sports city is divided into four parts and allotments happened in three different points of time, 2011, 2013 and 2015, and the builders were supposed to finish their projects in three years, and they had to spend Rs 410 crore on the sports centre. But it so happened that they subdivided land and never built the necessary sports infrastructure – a senior Noida Authority official.
In this sub-leasing of land, the requirement to reserve 70 per cent land for the Sports City was disregarded, said CAG.
The land was first transferred to subsidiary companies and then sold off to different builders altogether, all without the Noida Authority levying a transfer fee, leading to losses bleeding into hundreds of crores.
Six of the company’s subsidiaries to whom the land was allotted didn’t even exist when allotment was cleared by NOIDA. The authority didn’t even levy transfer charges while transferring the land to different companies and approving maps. Encroachment on land meant for sports was also getting signatures from NOIDA, while the exchequer suffered losses of more than Rs 290 crore. All this is detailed in the CAG report.
One of the builders, Gaursons Sportswood, however, told ThePrint that all the land allotment was legitimate.
“I had bought 40,000 sq ft of land and have already finished development there. I have also paid dues to the authority. All maps were cleared by the authority, and allotment happened with their full knowledge,” Manoj Gaur, chairman and managing director, said.
Gaur had approached the Allahabad High Court to receive a completion certificate for his apartments, but the court has directed the builder to make a proportionate sports facility.
“We have told the authority that we are willing to build proportionate sports facilities or pay the required money for it,” he told The Print.
Also read: At 50, Noida doesn’t know what it wants to be—cosmopolitan city or industrial utopia
Noida stops sports city project
After the CAG report exposed irregularities in land allotment and widespread corruption, the Noida Authority in 2021 decided to stop all work on the Sports City project. It also constituted a committee to look at the problems plaguing the project, and the matter was referred to the Uttar Pradesh government.
Even as builders completed their projects and handed over possession to homebuyers, the Noida Authority failed to issue completion certificates. In turn, builders failed to issue lease deeds to the buyers, many of whom, even after living in their flats for close to a decade, still aren’t official homeowners.
It is evident that NOIDA did not take due cognisance of the scale of projects and also showed willingness to allot plots to applicants whose financial strength was inadequate – CAG Report
Sood, who works in a multi-national company, is frustrated with the prolonged delay in flat registration.
“Instead of a Sports City, I just get to see a bunch of bushes,” he complained. “When the sub-lease of the land was allowed, why were the maps approved? Had the decisions not been made to allow construction at that point in time, innocent buyers like me would have saved their hard-earned money. Why were the NOCs stopped at the time of completion?”
An Uttar Pradesh assembly Public Accounts Committee report also directed the Authority to resume work on the Sports City in 2023, but no work was done.
From allotment of land to failure to build Sports City, the entire project has become a tangled mess of allegations and counter-allegations, with petitions pending in the Allahabad High Court, complicating the story further.
Matters in court
The Allahabad High Court on 24 February gave 10 separate judgments regarding three Sports City projects in Noida. It also ordered a CBI and ED probe against developers.
Builders and the consortium of companies approached the Allahabad High Court after the Noida Authority demanded payment of dues from them. The builders argued that they weren’t handed over the entire parcel of land, and alleged that the authority had subdivided land among smaller companies. The court did not go easy on the builders.
Several companies failed to pay their dues to the Noida Authority, citing insolvency. But in its judgment in Xanadu Developers and 8 others v State of UP, the Allahabad High Court observed that the insolvency proceedings were actually orchestrated.
“The insolvency is a tailor-made insolvency just to avoid civil and criminal liabilities and to avoid payment of the dues and completing the obligation of developing the Sports City. This is nothing but just a fraud played on Noida Authority as well as on the State and other stakeholders/ creditors,” the court noted.
In sector 150, ATS Builders Noida alleged that 25 acres of land were never made available to them, because of which they’re unable to complete their project.
In the meantime, Noida Authority, in multiple responses to petitions filed in Allahabad High Court, said they’re not obligated to look after the interests of home buyers, as there is no contract between the authority and the homebuyer.
Even the recommendations of the 2023 Amitabh Kant committee report, which was constituted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, haven’t helped. It recommended delinking house registration from developers’ dues and suggested allowing deed registration if buyers had long been in possession.
Homebuyers are unable to sell their apartments because of the registry issues. The builder also charges them a transfer fee, which can be arbitrary. They are also unable to take their society’s affairs into their own hands and form an RWA.
“We are living on the builders’ mercy,” said Vipul Agarwal, head of the informal association formed by the apartment owners, “We have tried making an Apartment Owners Association, but since the CBI, ED inquiry is pending, new bodies cannot be registered.”
The plaster of the balconies of Agarwal’s society is falling off, there’s visible seepage, and the paint is chipping. But the builder, residents say, remains unresponsive. They can’t approach the Noida Authority for help either, as they’re often told they don’t exist in official records without a registered deed.
“In this builder, authority, government nexus, we, the homebuyers, don’t feature at all,” said retired Chemistry teacher, Sunil Chandra Agarwal.
This article is part of a series called ‘Noida@50’. Read all articles here.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)