Lavasa: CAG indictment brings shame to Sharad Pawar

by Abhay Vaidya Without mincing any words, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has delivered one of the severest indictments of the Maharashtra government’s role in the massive Rs 2,000 crore plus Lavasa Lake City project in Pune district. Throughout 2010-2011, this mega commercial and housing project by Lavasa Corporation, a subsidiary of Hindustan Construction Company Ltd (HCC), was pulled up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for flouting various environmental norms. It was embroiled in a pitted legal battle in the Bombay High Court which also upheld many of the observations made by the MoEF. The CAG report on Maharashtra has looked into the procedural and administrative issues and has commented on the key decisions taken by the Maharashtra government while granting various clearances and concessions to the project. The extent to which the interests of the people of Maharashtra were compromised by the Congress-NCP government can be gauged from just two critical observations made by CAG: That Lavasa Corporation was selected without any transparency and the project was driven by private interest. [caption id=“attachment_279831” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In 2004-05 when the first investigative news reports were written about Lavasa, the project was referred to in hush hush tones in private and government circles as “Sharad Pawar’s baby”.”] [/caption] As specifically noted by the CAG: “Hill station type areas in Pune were identified without any expert study and Lavasa Corp was selected without any transparency; the project was driven more by private interest rather than public interest. The state decided to develop the area without publicity or Expressions of Interest, and only one project, Lavasa, got the sanction in 2001. No other hill stations have been developed since then.” Why did this happen and why did the Maharashtra government cast a Nelson’s eye to the large-scale construction activity in the area around the backwaters of the Varasgaon dam in Pune district? The state government’s abdication and the complete lack of transparency were starkly visible in 2004-05 when the first investigative news reports were written about Lavasa. The project was then referred to in hush hush tones in private and government circles as “Sharad Pawar’s baby”. Villagers complained that revenue officials were forcing them to cooperate on the project by calling it a government initiative. The entire excavation site was closed to public scrutiny and was guarded by private security. The project in its initial years was enveloped in a thick cloud of secrecy and completely lacked transparency. The spate of speedy government clearances that this project got raised eyebrows then, although everyone knew who the godfather was. Long before NCP president Sharad Pawar admitted in a newspaper interview in 2010 that he had identified the site for Lavasa and suggested it to HCC chairman Ajit Gulabchand, it was known and established that the project was conceived by Pune businessman Aniruddha Deshpande whose firm City Corporation had stakes from Pawar and his wife. In its initial years, Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule and her husband Sadanand were prominent shareholders in this project. Having little to hide, Pawar now bats openly for the project and even participates in official talks relating to Lavasa, as happened recently when he and Gulabchand met Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. Lavasa Corporation has refuted the CAG findings as allegations “based on misconceptions” possibly due to lack of clarity and understanding of the facts besides “an element of malafide intent amongst some detractors”. It has highlighted the numerous benefits that will accrue from this project, once it is completed. While that may be true, can any government allow the bypassing of rules and regulations and go out of the way and favour a particular builder as observed by CAG? In fact, CAG is not the first impartial authority to find serious irregularities in the project. CAG has taken serious exceptions to the manner in which the Special Planning Authority status was granted to Lavasa by the government without any set precedence. According to the report, the SPA approved Lavasa’s plans and layouts which were not in conformity with the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act and Development Control Regulations. “The Government abdicated its responsibility of monitoring the project, handing out undue favours to the developer. Lavasa Corp’s plans and layouts violated certain state rules but the Director of Town Planning, Pune, didn’t monitor these modifications,” the CAG report states. The permission granted by the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (then headed by Ajit Pawar who is now deputy CM) to lease land and construct bunds in the backwaters of the Varasgaon dam was found illegal by CAG. It is not possible to wish away such uncomplicated observations that bring shame on the Maharashtra government and Pawar as “based on misconceptions” and “an element of malafide intent amongst some detractors”. In fact, there are parallels in this CAG report with the Bombay High Court’s recent indictment of Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in the filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods case. “Here is a case where all norms of transparency and reasonableness have been given a complete go-by,” the ruling by a division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Girish Godbole said while holding Deshmukh guilty of misusing his official position.