Months before the Adarsh Society scam blew up, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan came under fire for another land scam allegation made by Eknath Khadse, Bharatiya Janata Party member and Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly.
Mr. Khadse rocked the Assembly this July by hauling up Mr. Chavan with allegations of a Rs.50,000 crore-scam in Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) projects.
He pointed to alleged irregularities in projects by developers Akruti City Limited and Ruchi Priya in the Royal Palms Estate and land belonging to the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited.
Among documents sourced by Mr. Khadse under the Right to Information Act is a letter from Congress MP Gurudas Kamat, Secretary of the Department of Housing, Maharashtra, which calls for cancelling the development permission given to Akruti builders.
“There are some major discrepancies and deviations on the law in this order [dated June 26, 2009] granting complete rights to Akruti City Limited…There is great resentment against the developer because of shoddy constructions recorded in SRA projects elsewhere, and people have been resisting any survey being carried out by the said Akruti City Limited,” states the letter, a copy of which is with The Hindu .
In July 2009, Akruti approached the government with a proposal for the development of a Special Township Project under section 3K, which requires development on 40 hectares. However, Akruti's proposal was only for 26 hectares. Despite this, the builder's proposal was accepted by the Chavan government.
