Opposing the standing committee decision to lease out its properties for 99 years to developers or an organisation to implement a joint project on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, civic activist Vijay Kumbhar has alleged that the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) claim that there was no mention of how long a property should be leased out for a BOT project in the government rules, is actually untrue. Kumbhar has also warned to move to court unless the civic body nullifies the newly made decision.

The civic standing committee on Tuesday gave approval to this proposal of leasing out its properties for 99 years for BOT projects. As the proposal claimed, there was no provision made to this effect in the government rules.

In the proposal, the civic administration said, “The state government in its gazette published on March 6, 2008, has laid down a set of rules regarding the usage of properties owned by a municipal corporation. As per the provisions in these rules, the properties that are owned by a municipal corporation and are being utilised for a public cause, will be made available for a joint project to a particular institution. The rules say that the lease out period cannot exceed 30 years.” The proposal added, “However, the rules contain no mention about the lease-out period for the lands or properties that would be developed on BOT basis. When a particular developer is given such a property by a municipal corporation for developing it on BOT basis, the developer has to invest money for the development. In such cases, if the land or propery is leased out to the developer for a longer period, the financial returns that the particular developer or institution gets is higher and so are the returns that a municipal corporation is liable to get.”

However, Kumbhar has alleged that the civic administration’s statement that there was no mention of the duration for leasing out properties for BOT projects in the rules, is itself wrong. “Because, as mentioned in section five of the division six of the government rules, it is mentioned that the maximum duration for leasing out public properties for joint projects will be 30 years, after getting approved from the general body meeting.”

He has also demanded the names of those elected members who proposed to lease out all the public properties for 99 years, “to reveal those, who want to grab the public lands.”