Similar to the Adarsh housing scam, politicians and ministers were planning to pull off another scam at the proposed Indus Cooperative Housing Society in the posh Wadala suburb of Mumbai.
To purchase flats at exceptional concession rates, bureaucrats in the state secretariat bargained to clear files, adding their own people to the original list with the Finance Department.
According to a senior bureaucrat, the Indus Cooperative Housing Society was promoted by some IAS officers who were later joined by IPS officers, senior government servants and legislators from the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. This resulted in the members’ list rising to 135 plus. The promoters applied for land at Wadala with the government giving its willingness to allot 13,000 square meters of land in September last year.
After the government agreed to the allotment of the land, it dawned on the promoters that the land was near the sea shore and was thus covered under the provisions of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification, making them eligible to use only 7,000 square meters, which was nearly half of the actual land allotted by the government. This compelled the promoters to reduce the membership to 92 and they provided this list to the Mumbai Collector, who further reduced it to about 70 members saying that most of the members were not eligible. As the land was reduced, the building could only accommodate 82 members for 1,000 square feet flats.
As the file began moving in all the secretariat departments, politicians also demanded a share in the society to clear the proposal, but then the infighting between the bureaucrats and politicians to get a flat in the Indus society reached Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who called for the file.
Taking a lesson from the Adarsh housing scam, Chavan may delete names of some politicians and bureaucrats or may even delay the allotment of land to the Indus Society.
Meanwhile, 29 senior IAS officials and junior bureaucrats who had grabbed a government land consisting of five acres and formed the Gayatri Cooperative Housing Society in the posh Model Colony area in the Shivaji Nagar suburb of Pune have not given up their claim for the land, even after six years.
The vacant land belonged to the former Food Craft Institute (FCI), now Maharashtra State Institute Hotel Management and Catering (MSIHMAC), which is a state government institution. The land was allotted to the institution to construct a ladies hostel and sports complex. As the state government was reeling under financial crisis in 2004, funds for the building were withheld.
The bureaucrats took advantage of a legal loophole that government land must be utilized within two years or the government would reclaim it back. They then came together with bureaucrats from the secretariat and, without the knowledge of the institution, took control of the land by dubious means. Though the bureaucrats managed to get an order in favor of the Gayatri Society floated by them, it was quashed by the then Divisional Commissioner P. D. Karandikar.
However, according to a report in a local daily, the MSIHMAC is not ready to relinquish its claim on the plot and said it has been unable to build on the plot due to a lack of funds. "We have had the land since 1989. However, a fund crunch delayed our project. We have now entered into a tri-party agreement with the Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education, Joint Director of Technical Education, Pune, and the principal of the institute to build a five-story building to conduct the degree program and house a ladies hostel," said Sunetra Roday, MSIHCT principal, adding that their building plan is with the Pune Municipal Corporation.
Director of Technical Education Dr. S. K. Mahajan added that the government cannot take back land when there is a need to expand facilities at MSIHCT. “The blueprint for the construction is ready and we are awaiting approvals,” he said.
Now Karandikar, who had ordered the land grabbed by bureaucrats to be returned to the institution, says, “I have unconfirmed information that the Government in Department of Higher & Technical Education (DTE) have informed the Revenue Department that the land in question is not likely to be utilized by them for expansion of the Hotel Management Institute (for want of budgetary provision). This would pave the way for floating another Co-op Housing Society on the same plot. Official information on this can be obtained by Research and Technical Institute application.”
