Dam to supply water to 270 villages

Mumbai: Maharashtra cabinet has decided to handover the controversial Kondhane dam situated near the Karjat Tehsil of the Raigad district to the City and Industrial Development Corporation Maharashtra (CIDCO) for water supply to the 270 villages that fall under the Navi Mumbai Airport Influenced Notified Area (NAINA) managed by the latter.  The state cabinet took this decision on Monday, putting the Kondhane dam under the norms of projects for drinking water.

Interestingly, tenders for the Kondhane dam’s work are being probed by Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) in multi-crore alleged irrigation scam involving Nationalist Congress Party’s state chief Sunil Tatkare. However, the government has clarified that this handover decision would not affect the ongoing probe by the ACB.

Earlier, the state government had appointed CIDCO as the developing authority of NAINA. CIDCO will be developing the 270 villages that come under the area. To meet the demand of drinking water in these villages, the state government has decided to handover the dam to CIDCO. The condition for the handover includes paying the cost of expenditure till date to Konkan Irrigation Corporation, which built the dam.

Kondhane dam has been one of the talking points in the alleged '70,000 crore irrigation scam in Maharashtra. The key point of the scam includes the allegations made by the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadami Party against the then irrigation minister Sunil Tatkare for hiking the cost of the dam project from Rs 80 crore to Rs 327 crore.

Irrigation scam

Alleged irrigation scam under Congress-NCP government had cost them state power. NCP is principally under fire over corruption allegations of this alleged Rs 70,000 crore scam. Its leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and the former minister and current state chief Sunil Tatkre had appeared before ACB in 2015. Kondhane dam is situated in the Raigad district, which is the Mr Tatkre’s home district.