CIDCO land scam uncovered

CIDCO land scam uncovered
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

AURANGABAD, DEC 18: The son of a top IAS officer in the state and the son-in-law of a City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) director, have grabbed some of the choicest of prime lands in the town in a bulk land sale by CIDCO, at throwaway prices.

These and more startling facts have come out in the process of preparing a public interest writ petition, filed in the Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court by economist M Desarda, challenging the bulk sale of land by CIDCO.

The petitioner, a former member of the State Planning Board has been provided an amiscus curie by the court He has named Aurangabad Ajintha Bahu Udeshi Seva sanstha, Swethas Co-operative Housing Society, Suchita Housing Society, as some of the chief beneficiaries of the `land dole' by CIDCO. Umakant Dangat, a senior bureaucrat, currently posted in Mantralaya is the chief promoter of Swethas Co-operative Housing Society.

The IAS officer's son and a former divisional commissioner of Aurangabad are members of the Swethas Society,sources at CIDCO told The Indian Express.Interestingly, Rajagopal Patil, son-in-law of CIDCO director Sambhaji Pawar, appears as a member in the Ajintha as well as Suchita Society, as does Pawar himself despite the fact that Co-operative Housing Society rules forbid any person from being a member of more than one society. In fact, every member of a co-operative housing society has to submit an affidavit, declaring that he does not possess any residential plot in his name anywhere. While it is expected of CIDCO to give wide publicity inviting applications and tenders for any land it wishes to sell, the corporation showed unusual secrecy when it allocated land to these societies, Desarda said.

The land allocated to Swethas society was through a hasty resolution passed by the CIDCO board of directors on 15 November, he says. What the resolution meant may shock the thousands of people who queue up before the CIDCO office each day, hoping to fulfil their dream of owning a house through hard earned money. Itmeant that the society could buy a piece of the 2,480 square metre of land in the prime N-2 sector of the CIDCO, at a rate of Rs 1,405 per square meter. Those in know of land deals point out that the prevailing prices around the area at that time were at least three times more than the CIDCO offer.