By
Peter Balroop
Sunday 6th April, 2008
Uthara Rao, executive chairman of the Estate Management Business Development Company (EMBDC), estimates he will deliver 22,250 residential lots on Caroni (1975) Ltd State lands by September, next year.
The lots are 5,000 square feet each.
The man who says he has the Midas touch that enabled EMBDC to declare a profit of $15.2 million in 2007, up from the $13.4 million in 2006, promised that ex-Caroni workers would get 7,200 of these lots, priced at between $40,000 and $50,000.
The land—6,800 acres in all—is being developed: earth works, perimeter and topographical survey, installation of underground sewer and electricity facilities, then division into 5,000-square feet plots, Rao told the Sunday Guardian in an exclusive interview.
He also disclosed that 190 two-acre agricultural plots had been handed out to ex-Caroni workers, who had planted them and, in fact, already begun reaping crops.
The housing lots are being developed on 42 sites, 22 of which will be exclusively for ex-Caroni workers.
Rao emphasised there was no way the EMBDC could deliver the housing lots by June, as ordered in Justice Lennox Deyalsingh’s judgment, last December.
“I am not running a doubles factory,” declared Rao, a 63-year-old engineer with management training who has been working for the past 20 years in Trinidad.
The EMBDC started work on the ambitious project three-and-a-half years ago, but it was only three to four months in each year, during the dry season, that development work could proceed full speed ahead.
“Justice Deyalsingh should understand that,” Rao said, recalling the judgment had been appealed by the State, and the first hearing was scheduled some time next month.
Deserve lots
He said everything took time, and he would certainly deliver just as he had done on almost every project he handled during his career.
The Government, too, he stressed, was hand in hand with him working to deliver the residential lots as well as the 7,600 two-acre agricultural plots that were promised to the ex-Caroni workers.
“We at the EMBDC have a well-structured plan, and the political drive is there.”
Rao said he believed the ex-workers deserved the residential lots they were promised as part of their VSEP package.
He added the type of development being done, in terms of the residential and agricultural plots, was unique to T&T, and when completed would, indeed, succeed in rocketing T&T into the realm of First-World status.
In terms of the residential lots, the original mandate from the State was to develop 22 sites for the 7,200 ex-Caroni workers who had applied, but the Government had ordered the EMBDC to expand to 42 sites, with the additional 15,050 residential lots going to members of the public who applied.
The lots would cost around $110,000 to develop, but the State would subsidise the purchase price for new owners.
Rao said the State was deciding what price the 15,050 lots, which would be on offer to the public, would be sold at. His input in that was minimal, he admitted.
In terms of the 7,600 agricultural lots being developed on 20,000 of Caroni’s 77,000 acres, Rao estimated that 50 per cent of the work was completed.
This involved laying of access roads, division into lots and establishment of farmers’ crossings; in essence, right of passageway through property being farmed.
Rao said 190 of the ex-Caroni workers had begun planting and reaping short-term crops in the Jerningham and Waterloo areas.
He expected by the end of 2008 all agricultural plots would be developed and handed over to the lessors.
The EMBDC’s strategic business unit also has earmarked 2,800 acres for development as residential lots to be sold to “Joe Public” with each acre being divided into 1,800 lots.
Plots of 150, 80 and 50 acres were also being developed by the EMBDC as “community” lots, and in all 30,000 acres of Caroni land would eventually be devoted to agricultural and residential plots.
False charges
Accusations of sexual harassment and bribery have stalked Rao during recent times, but he sees himself as a man with the Midas touch who has covered himself in glory in the 20 years he has worked in T&T.
A native of the Indian state of Hyderabad, who has been executive chairman of EMBDC for the past four years, Rao, charged with managing the fortunes of the shutdown Caroni (1975) Ltd, says the easiest thing to do to pull down a successful boss is to accuse him of either sexual harassment or corruption in terms of bribery.
Even if the charges are false, the mud flung tends to stick, he observes ruefully, shaking his head of thinning hair in his well-ordered Valpark office a week ago.
Rao said he came here in 1989 when ISPAT was losing $1 million a day, and in one year the company was turned around.
Since then, he worked with Carlisle Tyres, Caridoc, and PriceWaterhouse before taking up the EMBDC post.
He said it was, indeed, ironic that descendants of Indians started Caroni (1975) Ltd and he had to come from India to take the remnants of the company and turn it around to make a profit.
He says he works beyond the call of duty: on the job from 6.30 am up to 7.30 pm most days.
Rao said he took the accusations in stride.
“I will keep my chin up and go forward. I am committed to delivery.”
