Chandigarh, June 12: The Haryana government today postponed the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Reliance Industries Ltd for the country’s largest special economic zone on a 25,000-acre plot in Gurgaon following reports that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was “unhappy” with handing over the land to the company at a throwaway price.

Government sources said the deal would now have to be renegotiated and signed next week. The project entails a total investment of Rs 1,25,000 crore over the next 3-4 years. Of this, Reliance (RIL) will account for 20 per cent and is expected to tie-up with other companies for the development of the SEZ.

“We are looking at reports of the Centre capping future SEZs as those that are in existence are not showing the desired results. Also, there is opposition from within the Congress to hand over the land at cheap rates for commercial purposes,” said a Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation official involved in the deliberations.

Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, however, denied that Sonia has stepped in to stall the deal and said RIL chief Mukesh Ambani has just returned from the US and sought more time to study the agreement. “There is no political motive behind the postponement of the MoU. There is also no question of reviewing the project,” he said.

Asked why RIL was chosen for the mega project, Hooda said it had taken in-principle approval. Anybody could set up such a large project, he added.

The project, with its own airport, would employ 5 lakh people and generate a revenue of Rs 10,000 crore per year.

On whether Sonia was apprised of the project, Hooda said he had informed the party chief about the Reliance SEZ when it was initiated.

A number of land deals for mega projects have earned sharp protests from farmers and political groups in Punjab and Haryana. Apart from the SEZ, they include Reliance Industries’s agri project at Mohali and the Chandigarh-DLF Universal Ltd deal for the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park.

Farmers, whose land was acquired by the Chandigarh administration and given to DLF for the IT park, are staging protests.