Though Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has been accused of being indecisive he has never been associated with a scam. However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya is keen to change this perception as he announced a Rs 5000 crore scam engineered by the departments directly under Chavan.
Somaiya on Thursday said that massive irregularity occurred in the rehabilitation of slums occupying on the land belonging to Mumbai Airport which is being developed by GVK led Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL). He said that state government's Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) issued Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) to HDIL, a firm which was hired by MIAL for implementing the rehabilitation in October 2007. However MIAL terminated the contract with HDIL for rehabilitation in 2013 for not being able to carry out the rehabilitation of slums in stipulated time.
“Out of the 27561 slums that had been cleared and given houses in building by HDIL, only 644 families were shifted. Even before HDIL was able to complete its commitment of rehabilitation of all slum dwellers, the SRA had already issued 96 per cent of the prime construction area at Kurla,” said Somaiya. He said that against the 2.33 per cent families shifted from slums to building tenements, HDIL got land at prime area at Kurla in Mumbai in which it has already constructed 10000 tenements for sale in open market.
The SRA has already issued 8.37 lakh square meter of TDR to HDIL without ensuring that all the eligible slum dwellers were rehabilitated which according to Somaiya is illegal. “Chavan was forced to issue TDR with pressure from Congress leader Ahmed Patel and Praful Patel the then civil aviation minister,” said Somaiya. He arrived at the figure of Rs 5000 crore by assuming the cost of developed home at the rate of Rs 25000 per square feet at Kurla.
He has demanded a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the scam to book the culprits and recover the losses suffered by the state. “As this is an cognizable offense I would be filing a private criminal complaint before the magistrate,” said Somaiya.