The Maharashtra government on Tuesday tabled the controversial CAG report, which has indicted several state ministers in land deals, in both the Houses of the Legislature. However, the ministers indicted by the CAG aggressively defended themselves and even questioned the CAG’s authority.
PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is facing the heat after CAG observations regarding the land allotted to Mumbai Education Trust, said that there was a conspiracy to defame him. The CAG has pointed out that the MET, in which Mr Bhujbal is one of the trustees, was allotted 41,300 square metres land in Nashik for `1.55 lakh in 2003 and 50,000 square metres land at `7.53 lakh in 2009. On both the occasions, the reservation of the land was changed from mining to education. The market value of the land in 2008 was `9.39 crore. The entire land is still lying unutilised, the CAG observed.
However, Mr Bhujbal said that there was nothing wrong in the land allotment. “The government has a policy to allot land to educational institutes at concessional rate in order to promote the education. Till now 3,160 institutes have been given over 5,000 acres of land this way. CAG is suppose to conduct an audit of the government expenditure and not scrutinize the basic policies of the government such allotment of land for public purpose.,” he said. The minister further added that there appears to be a conspiracy as there was an attempt to target selective ministers.
The CAG has also criticised Sindhudurg Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, in which industry minister Narayan Rane’s wife is a trustee, for misusing the land given by the government. The trust was given a land at Andheri to construct a community centre. However, the building constructed by the trust has a multipurpose banquet hall and its rent is `2 lakh per day.
However, Mr Rane argued that the education institute run by the trust need a source of income and a banquette hall like this helps the institute to survive.
He further said that he would move a breach of privilege motion against the newspapers and channels who defamed him by publishing news reports based on the leaked CAG report.