THE TIMES OF INDIA

'NMC has no mandate for London Street'

TNN | May 21, 2011, 07.05am IST

Protection of Rights' founder-president Gopal Kondawar has written to top BJP leaders, including veteran L K Advani, apprising them of the `London Street' proposal. The BJP-controlled civic body wants to execute such outright commercial project on the home turf of its national president Nitin Gadkari, he said urging the party leadership to intervene in the matter. He has also written to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan requesting him to withhold permission to the `London Street' plan

NAGPUR: Lokadhikar Manch, a city-based organization fighting for people's rights, has raised serious doubts on the Nagpur Municipal Corporation's proposed plan to develop a vast stretch of 80-acre land on the famous 'London Street' model. Nitin Chaudhary of the Manch said the NMC has no mandate to carry out such elitist projects.

In a statement, Chaudhary said the NMC got the land from the defence department by paying Rs 3.29 crore. But it is seeking to turn it into a glitzy, real estate paradise that would bring huge profits to few private investors who would bag the project on BOT basis. "It's an anti-people project and all elected representatives of the civic body should oppose it," he stated.

"In a welfare state, a civic body is expected to function as a local government wedded to social causes. How can it come out with such money-spinning schemes with an eye only on the high-earning groups and totally ignoring the masses," Chaudhary wondered. "Ironically, the BJP which claims to be a nationalist party is trying to revive imperialistic designs through the NMC that it controls by promoting the London Street," remarked Chaudhary.

Joining him in opposing the NMC plan, NCP corporator and leader of the party in the civic house Vedprakash Arya said that he would be looking into the fresh plans sent to the government and register his protest. "I will requisition the file and take up the matter with the party leaders to see that such grandiose plans without any legal sanction never materialize," Arya told TOI. He said if the state has given an alternative land to the defence department, there was no way it would approve such commercial plans on government land handed over to the NMC.

Meanwhile, Centre for Protection of Rights' founder-president Gopal Kondawar has written to top BJP leaders, including veteran L K Advani, apprising them of the `London Street' proposal. The BJP-controlled civic body wants to execute such outright commercial project on the home turf of its national president Nitin Gadkari, he said urging the party leadership to intervene in the matter. He has also written to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan requesting him to withhold permission to the `London Street' plan.

"It involves mind-blogging sums of money as nearly one crore sq ft of construction will be done to be sold at market rates to make over Rs 1000 crore in profits," he alleged.

AN OPEN LETTER TO SHRI PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN, HON’BLE CHIEF MINISTER OF MAHARASHTRA STATE & ALL OTHER MINISTERS OF COUNCIL OF MINISTERS, GOVERNENT OF MAHARASHTRA

DR. GOPAL LAXMAN KONDAWAR,

                      M.Sc., Ph.D., Fellow – I.E.H.

Founder President-Centre for Protection of Rights

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5, Harekrishna, Ramdaspeth, Nagpur-440011.

Mob.  9822222222 www.gopalkondawar.com

gopal-kondawar.blogspot.com

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Ref. : GLK/BJPNG/ 179/2011                  Date :  14/05/2011

AN OPEN LETTER TO SHRI PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN, HON’BLE CHIEF MINISTER OF MAHARASHTRA STATE

& ALL OTHER MINISTERS OF COUNCIL OF MINISTERS,

GOVERNENT OF MAHARASHTRA  

To,

           

RESPECTED SHRI PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN,

HON’BLE CHIEF MINISTER OF MAHARASHTRA STATE

& ALL OTHER MINISTERS OF COUNCIL OF MINISTERS,

GOVERNENT OF MAHARASHTRA,

MANTRALAYA, MUMBAI – 400032

Through :- The Hon’ble Municipal Commissioner of N.M.C. Nagpur.

REG. GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA LAND BEING MISUSED FOR TOTALLY ILLEGAL AND UNLAWFUL PROJECT OF SO CALLED LANDON STREET PROJECT OF NAGPUR MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, INSTEAD OF UTILIZING THE SAID HUGE CHUNK OF GOVERNMENT LAND FOR LOW COST & AFFORDABLE HOUSING SCHEME NEEDY AND POOR FAMILIES IN LOWER INCOME GROUP / BPL.

SUB:  Request to take immediate steps to protect interest of NEEDY AND POOR FAMILIES IN LOWER INCOME GROUP / BPL. who all are in search of low cost & affordable housing

MUTE QUESTIONS:

HOW A GOVERNMENT ARRANGED LAND BEING USED FOR TOTALLY ILLEGAL AND UNLAWFUL PROJECT OF SO CALLED LANDON STREET PROJECT OF NAGPUR MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, INSTEAD OF UTILIZING THE SAID HUGE CHUNK OF GOVERNMENT LAND FOR LOW COST & AFFORDABLE HOUSING SCHEME NEEDY AND POOR FAMILIES IN LOWER INCOME GROUP / BPL ?

How such Private Commercial Project being promoted by Ruling B.J.P. against the mandate & provisions of N.M.C. Act ?

Hon’ble Shri Chavan Saheb & Other revered Ministers in the Council,

I am an admirer of policies of UPA – Congress NCP Aghadi Government in Maharashtra which are being pursed in the interest of poor and common man.  I always tried for the affordable housing to the poor & needy.

I am post graduate in the faculty of Science and also been awarded Doctoral Degree in the field of  Mathematics. I have contributed for the cause of upliftment of Education, building construction and infrastructure development in an around Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra State. Now I am devoting my time for the cause of Protection of Rights of common man as Guaranteed by  the Constitution of India, as a Founder President of Centre for Protection of Rights.

I am writing this letter to you in the matter of great injustice being called on poor and needy families in BPL & Lower Income Group who all are in search of affordable Housing in the city of Nagpur and the areas surrounding therein.  The way in which Ruling B.J.P. – Nagar Viaks Aghadi of Nagpur Municipal Corporation is misusing the provisions of N.M.C. Act to grab huge chunk of government land of Railway line of Defence which has been vacated by Indian Ordinance Board – Ambazari Defence Project on which the railway line was there and now the land has been vacated and given to government in lieu of equivalent land made available for the defence project in Pune and thus the land at Nagpur was handed over to Government of Maharashtra. 

The entire huge land in the prominent areas of Mauza Ajani, Khamla, Jaitala, Shivangaon etc. areas of Nagpur city can be utilized for the purpose of providing affordable housing and shelters for the BPL and LIG families in Nagpur but Ruling BJP-  NVA is now conspiring to use the said land for the totally illegal and unlawful project of Private Commercial BOT Project in the name and style of Landon Street Project and without any statutory provisions in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation Act, this is being pursued illegally and in contravention of legal provisions governing Nagpur Municipal Corporation no such project worth several hundred Crores can be proposed and proceeded therewith illegally. 

The said project is the brain child of BJP President Nitin Gadkari who is behind taking away the land which can be used for project of Low and affordable housing to the poor and needy persons / families in the Nagpur City.  But Ruling party and the Municipal administration is doing this illegally against the interest of poor and needy people who all are in search of affordable housing for which the said land is most suitable.

It is humbly submitted that in entire Nagpur city such a big piece of land is not at all available for affordable and low cost housing for LIG and BPL families.  As per the rough estimates more than one lac flats can be constructed on this huge chunk of land but without using the said land for affordable housing project , the Ruling BJP - NVA  in association with the NMC Officials is illegally planning to use the said land for illegal BOT Project in contravention of provisions contended in NMC Act. 

Hence, I solicit your humble intervention in the matter so that the interest of thousands of poor and needy BPL / LIG families who all are striving for small houses / shelters can be sorted out.  Similarly, all the slums, notified and un-notified, both can be shifted to such low housing schemes at this site of government land.  Hence this petition letter.

I hope, you will consider it favorably and the game plan of Gadkari can be demolished to use the said government land illegal BOT Project of Landon Street which is being pursued without any provision in the NMC Act and also there being any sanction from Government of Maharashtra in UDD. Hence this petition.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

(Dr. Gopal Laxman Kondawar)                                                           

Founder President – Centre for Protection of Rights

Ex-minister Praful Patel forced Air India to buy excess aircraft

If Air India's Maharaja is in the red today, one man - Praful Patel - is largely to blame for it.
On August 2, 2004, four months after he took over as civil aviation minister, Patel, now the minister for heavy industries, chaired a meeting that decided to inflate Air India's purchase order from the original proposal of 28 aircraft to 68 at a stupendous cost of  Rs 50,000 crore.
Of the 50 aircraft on Patel's shopping list for Air India, 27 were Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Worse, the inflated purchase order was not backed by either a viable revenue plan or expansion of routes. The erstwhile Indian Airlines too was asked to revisit its proposal to buy 43 aircraft but it refused.
The ministry, through a letter dated August 5, 2004, forwarded minutes of the meeting to then CMD Air India, V. Thulasidas. The letter written by an under-secretary in the ministry K. K. Padmanabhan said: "I am directed to forward herewith a copy of the minutes of the meeting taken by Shri Praful Patel, Minister of Civil Aviation on August 2, 2004, to discuss the proposal of Air India for acquisition of aircraft by Air India."
The minutes of the meeting tasked that the "Air India should revisit the proposal of aircraft and submit a fresh project proposal to the government at the earliest which could include the revised requirements." Thulasidas agreed to revise the proposal despite strong opposition from the ministry's additional secretary-cum-financial adviser V. Subramaniam.
Patel's controversial decision proved to be the proverbial millstone for the airline which is still straddled with a debt burden of more than Rs 40,000 crore and an estimated loss of around Rs 7,000 crore. Till the 2003-2004 fiscal, AI was making a profit of around Rs 105 crore.
When contacted, Patel's official spokesperson from the heavy industries ministry said in 2004 the civil aviation ministry had asked both Air India and Indian Airlines if they would like to revisit and revise their order. "The Air India, in view of traffic growth, revised its proposal for aircraft acquisition but Indian Airlines revisited and came back with the same proposal. This was a suggestion and not a direction and since the aviation ministry is a parent body, the minister chairs review meetings of national carrier."
The spokesperson claimed: "There were a number of channels involved in the process which included C. G. Somiah Committee, committee of secretaries, empowered group of ministers (EGoM) and not the civil aviation ministry alone. The committees/group negotiated with both the companies (Boeing and Airbus) and cost was brought down considerably."
It is true that after the inflated proposal was cleared by the aviation ministry, the EGoM approved the purchase of 50 aircraft on firm basis and 18 for official low-cost Air India Express. But the documents with Mail Today show the ministry had kept the EGoM in the dark about the objections to the proposal by its financial adviser.
The spokesperson, for instance, did not mention that V. Subramaniam had questioned the need to increase the number of aircraft to be purchased from the Boeing in the absence of any viable revenue or business plan. More importantly, Subramaniam's objections were not recorded in the minutes of the meeting forwarded to the committee of secretaries and the EGoM. Not only did the ministry conceal its financial adviser's objections from the high-powered committees, but it also shunted out Subramaniam, who was also on the Air India board, just a week after the November 2004 meeting.
Between January and August 2004, there wasn't much change in the aviation scenario - either by way of load factor or growth in traffic. Yet, the meeting presented a bizarre justification for the purchase of new long-range aircraft.
The minutes say: "There had been some developments of late that needed consideration vis-a-vis the project proposal. First the competition for AI on the US route had assumed a different dimension, particularly with the introduction of non-stop flights through ultra long range aircraft by competing airlines in South East Asia and the gulf region." "Unless AI was able to match this product and connectivity by adding suitable aircraft to its fleet (which was not a part of the present proposal). AI's competitiveness, load factors and revenues were likely to be severely affected," the minutes add.
Then Air India CMD Thulasidas agreed that the "present proposal did not fully cater to the requirement of the AI's fleet, the additional requirement could be projected separately through a supplementary proposal after due evaluation".
The evaluation was done and final order inflated to buy 68 flying machines was okayed. There was, however, no change in the original plan of buying 18 Boeing 737-800s. Additions were made in the Boeing order. That included Boeing 777 LR (long range), Boeing 777 ER (extra range), and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The final order included 50 wide bodied aircraft for Air India and 18 narrow bodied aircraft for Air India Express.
Shockingly, the Dreamliner, which did not meet the delivery schedule was selected, for which Air India is now seeking compensation from Boeing. The national carrier has already received a delivery of 40 aircraft.
The draft CAG report has demolished the ministry's reason for augmenting the fleet - that the competition on the US route had grown. However, the draft audit report on the purchase of aircraft said the 10 international routes on which AI was plying since 2005 started incurring losses three years later. AI was consistently making losses on the USA route and was the single biggest sector impacting its revenue.
The report said that the Jet Airways was wise enough to withdraw from non-remunerative flights to San Francisco during the same period.
The original plan to purchase 28 aircraft incidentally was approved by the AI board during the NDA government. At its meeting on November 8, 2003, the board had approved a project report for acquisition of 10 A- 340- 300 long range aircraft, plus 18 B 737-800 short range aircraft. This report was sent to the government in January 2004. So, Patel's ministry overturned the earlier decision.
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), which called off its 10-day strike on Friday, has demanded a CBI inquiry into the aircraft acquisition during Patel's tenure, which, they said, defied logic. How an organisation, whose annual turnover was around Rs 7,000 crore, could place orders worth Rs 50,000 crore, asked an ICPA office bearer.
Civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi refused to comment. "Let us wait for the CAG report," he said.