MUMBAI: Disgruntled BJP leader and former revenue minister Eknath Khadse took pot shots at the Devendra Fadnavis administration in Maharashtra on Thursday as he revealed, in the Legislative Assembly, about a ‘rat scam’.
While the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) takes two years to kill 6 lakh rats, the efficient administration in Mantralaya has managed to kill more than three lakh rats within a matter of seven days, Khadse said while attacking the General Administration Department (GAD) that works under CM Fadnavis. “I smell a huge corruption. This needs to be probed,” Khadse demanded.
Khadse raised the issue in the house while participating in the debate on budgetary allocations. He said, “A firm was allotted work to kill rats in the state’s administrative headquarters. In the survey the firm found out 3,19,400 rats in the building. It had classified the rats as black rats, white rats, fat rats, skinny rats etc. Most importantly the, work that would have lasted for six months according to the agreement was completed by the firm in just within seven days.”
“This means that the firm killed 45,628.57 rats every day. The 0.57 rats amongst these must have been the newborns. But, even after factoring that out, the firm killed 31.68 rats every minute round the clock. It comes to 9,125.71 kg or roughly 9 MT. The firm has shown that they moved about 1 ton of dead rats every day in trucks. But, they haven’t mentioned anything on whether they dumped or how they disposed them off. The government has no record whatsoever on this,” Khadse told the House.
Khadse also linked the recent farmer’s suicide in Mantralaya with the alleged scam. “Dharma Patil (the farmer) must have got the poison meant for the rats,” the senior BJP leader said.