MMRDA commissioner silent over allegations

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) commissioner U.P.S. Madan remained silent over allegations of corruption on MMRDA officials who, allegedly in cahoots with private survey agencies, had inflated the number of project-affected people (PAP) under Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) — an initiative to bring about improvement in the traffic and transport situation in the Mumbai metropolitan region with financial assistance from World Bank.

The Asian Age had reported, on June 1, 2016, about activists and the PAPs alleging that the MMRDA officials inflated the number of PAPs for its project in Vikhroli further selling flats to people who were not eligible for rehabilitation.

“I could respond if specific information or instances of any irregularity are provided,” Mr Madan told this newspaper on Tuesday. When this correspondent provided Mr Madan with specific instances, he did not reply.

When contacted again on Thursday, asking about the allegations of activists and PAPs, Mr Madan preferred not to reply.

Vishram Patil, chief of social development cell, MMRDA, denied meeting this correspondent to give the MMRDA’s version on the allegations by the PAPs.

In a letter dated May 20, 2016, activists have already requested chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also happened to be the chairman of MMRDA, to initiate an inquiry into the alleged ‘housing scam’.

Kailash Sharma, an activist and PAP of a project under MUTP in Vikhroli, said, “We have been on hunger strike right outside the MMRDA’s headquarters for the past seven days, but no MMRDA official has approached us yet”

Officials from the social development cell of the MMRDA are already under scanner after the chief minister in January 2016 set up a committee to look into the issue of identifying the number of families that are yet to get new houses in exchange for their existing residences to make way for the iconic Eastern Freeway.