LUCKNOW: Shahjahan is said to have sourced marble for the Taj Mahal from Makrana in Rajasthan, a distance of about 400 km. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Chief Minister Mayawati has sourced building material for her dream project—Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal, which symbolises the empowerment of the deprived classes—from a distance of 1,100 km. In its latest report, the CAG has castigated the Uttar Pradesh Government for “irregular expenditure of
Rs 66 crore, which included Rs 15.60 crore on wasteful transportation” of stone to Lucknow.
The CAG report raises serious objections to the manner in which sandstone was excavated from Chunar in Mirzapur on the Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh border and then transported 750 km by truck to Bayana in Rajasthan for finishing, and then another 450 km to Lucknow. “This wasteful expenditure in transportation cost the government an additional Rs 15.60 crore,” the CAG report says.
This is not the first time that the Mayawati Government has been rapped by the CAG for wasteful expenditure on her dream projects in the name of Dalit icons in Lucknow. In 1997, when Kalyan Singh, who managed to survive in power after withdrawal of support by the BSP, had ordered a series of inquiries into
Mayawati’s dream projects, including by the CAG and a departmental probe headed by senior IAS officer T George Joseph. A CAG report of 1997 had also criticised the Mayawati Government for “undue pressure on the construction agencies and quality compromises”. The Joseph committee had also nailed down Public Works Department officials for wasteful expenditure and inflating rates of construction material.
This did not deter Mayawati, however, who restarted work with a vengeance on her dream projects after coming back to power. The estimated cost of construction of Mayawati’s special projects is nearing Rs 10,000 crore. A special force has been created for their protection, as her chief opponent, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has declared he will demolish the statues, including Mayawati’s, one by one if he comes to power after the 2012 Assembly elections in the state. Even the Supreme Court had ordered stopping construction work on the projects in 2009 from Lucknow to Noida. Later, the Mayawati Government convinced the apex court that there was no wasteful expenditure, though flak for having spent nearly Rs 80 crore on statues of dozens of elephants in the Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal continued. The construction of statues of elephants in long arrays drew even the attention of the Election Commission (EC), as it is the BSP’s election symbol. Mayawati’s legal expert and party MP Satish Chand ra Mishra convinced the courts and the EC that it was not a misuse of funds or publicity of the BSP’s election symbol because “elephants are symbols of welcome in the Hindu mythology”.
It is not just Mayawati’s dream projects have been under scanner of different investigating agencies, but she too faces a CBI inquiry for amassing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income. The CBI claims that it was ready to slap a chargesheet on her, but hardly anything has been able to keep Mayawati from pursuing her social, personal and political agenda. In the recent Assembly session, Mayawati got Rs 13 crore sanctioned for her 13-A Mall Avenue residence for renovation and upkeep.