Centre asks Bihar to stop work at Lalu's family mall

The Union Ministry of Environment has asked the Bihar government to immediately stop the ongoing work at the biggest shopping mall in Patna.

  The mall was coming up on the land owned by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi and son Tejaswi.
The Centre has found the charges, which alleged that the 12-floor mall was being constructed without the prior approval of the state’s environment ministry, true.

A directive in this regard, a copy of which is with DH, has been issued by the Centre to the Bihar State Pollution Control Board and Principal Secretary of the Forest and Environment Department, Bihar and others concerned.

The BJP had charged that since Tejaswi’s elder brother Tej Pratap was Bihar’s Forest and Environment Minister, the builder, Meridian Construction India Limited, owned by RJD MLA Abu Duzana, did not deem it fit to get prior approval from the competent authority in the state.

The shopping mall, which is being constructed on a 7.66 lakh sqft area, was earlier mired in controversy. “When Lalu was the railway minister, an industrialist Harsh Kochar was given two railway hotels – one in Ranchi and the other in Puri (Odisha).

In return, a plot in Patna — around two acres — was transferred in February 2005 to Delight Marketing Private Limited, whose director is RJD MP Prem Chand Gupta, Lalu’s key aide,” senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said.