<p>Patel’s comment has a contemporary ring in the context of the countless scams across the country, involving grabbing of prime government land by politicians and their lobbyists, all in the name of development or public welfare.<br /><br />Mumbai’s Adarsh Housing Society scam, which has been hogging media prime time and space in the last one week, is ten years old. The irregularities in the Society acquiring a little less than an acre of super-prime land valued at Rs 34 crore — abutting critical army and navy defence establishments - was first highlighted in 2003. The acquisition was in the name of Kargil war heroes, who were to get, some posthumously, houses in the plush Colaba area of South Mumbai where two-bedroom flats could cost up to Rs 2 crore at 2003 prices. The beneficiaries of the 31-storey complex include politicians and their relatives, two former chiefs of the Army and one of naval staff, a Shiv Sena MLC, a promoter under CBI investigation, IAS officers, a local army commander and ‘Kargil Heroes’. Though the top ex-defence officers have since declined the flats claiming they were “not aware that it was meant for Kargil heroes”, all the VIP allotees will be on the investigating agencies’ radar for some time at least, and may be posed uncomfortable questions such as the source of the money for the super-costly flats, and whether such sources fall within the limits of ‘known sources’ of their income.<br /><br />Whether the investigation will reach a logical end is anybody’s guess. The investigators may be asked to bury the hatchet, so to speak, while the media, particularly visual media, is unlikely to remember the episode for long. If the Maharashtra Chief Minister and his colleagues can object to US department”s demand for their personal details as a security input for President Barak Obama’s Mumbai visit, one can imagine how much leeway might the government-appointed agencies get to investigate high-profile scams such as Adarsha.<br /><br />Lender of last resort<br /><br />Why are land scams increasing in cities across India? Because urban land is at a premium and a prime source of finance for political parties and their leaders. Up to the ‘60s, industrialists financed political parties. During Emergency, someone realised there were astronomical kickbacks in defence contracts. But the chief ministers don’t have access to these funds. They have to exploit urban real estate.<br /><br />The Opposition too does not expose the misdeeds of the ruling party because they believe, quite correctly, that their time will come next. Moreover, the CM and his colleagues override the city fathers and take important decisions for the ‘development’ of cities because they are not answerable to the people of these cities as they are not elected from there. This is true of Bangalore, Chennai and many other cities.<br /><br />Another fad is for land sharks and real estate businessmen to ‘buy up’ political party tickets to enter the State legislatures and Parliament, blurring the dividing line between political and business classes.<br /><br />The script is the same everywhere. A sampling: </p>.<p>Land reform to land scam<br /><br />In West Bengal, land used to be one of the core agenda for the Left parties. But after more than three decades in power, land scams have replaced land reforms. The irregularity in the allotment of a plot of land to a former Calcutta judge out of the Chief Minister’s discretionary quota invited the ire of the apex court. The court indicted the judge, Justice Bhagawati Prasad Banerjee, for compromising judicial authority to get a plot in the Salt Lake area of Kolkata.<br /><br />The CPM-led government was asked to evaluate the property constructed over that plot and give the corresponding money to him before taking over the premises within one year. <br /><br />Unfortunately, a thriving racket between some leaders of the ruling Left Front and urban land sharks, the real estate promoters and a mushrooming gang of criminals who sustain and thrive on that nexus, apparently escaped the notice of the court. Even a section of the sports fraternity has been roped into this nexus.<br /><br /> First, it was the international gold-medal winner athlete-turned CPM Member of Parliament Jyotirmoyee Sikder and her athlete coach Awtar Singh and now the national soccer players like Bhaskar Ganguli, Sashthi Duley, Dipankar Roy et al. Controversy over an out-of-turn allotment of land in prime Salt Lake area to former India cricket skipper Saurav Ganguly is yet to gather dust.</p>.<p>TN’s city boom<br /><br />Thanks to the economic liberalisation since 1990s, land has got even scarcer in Tamil Nadu. More so in the State’s urban landscape which has one of the highest extent of urbanisation in India at 44 per cent, next only to Maharashtra.<br /><br />And Greater Chennai metropolitan area, with a population of about 85 lakhs and which ‘Forbes’ Magazine recently said has joined the select list of Ahmedabad and Bangalore as the country’s fastest growing cities, is the locus of this silent transformation where land and home prices skyrocket. <br /><br />With most prime properties in the heart of the city still owned by Government or State-owned organisations who do not wish to relocate, “there is now lot more pressure on existing urban land unless satellite cities are formed or social infrastructure like schools move to semi-urban areas”, argued the builder. <br /><br />This trend is also reflected in the market prices. After a brief lull in the wake of the September 2008 global economic slowdown, Chennai’s property prices have shot up by 20 per cent, say real estate sources. In upper middle class areas like Adyar and Mylapore of South Chennai, property prices have shot up to a giddy Rs 15,000 per square feet, sources said, adding, “People are still ready to buy.” With Chennai to get a Metro Rail in another couple of years, property prices are bound to harden more, the sources add. <br />Again near Siruseri, 25 km from Chennai and alongside the ‘Old Mamallaparam Road’ developed as the ‘IT Corridor’, ‘lifestyle apartments’ are now being offered at Rs 2275 per square feet, which is still a good bargain for techies, say real estate developers. The anticipated investment flow into IT and related sectors amid a stock market boom has created a “powerful lobby controlling land” on the city’s fringe areas and extending into neighbouring Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur districts.<br /><br />There is no full-blown land or housing scam in the State as yet, a la the latest Mumbai housing scam, but “another Adarsh society is in the making here,” rued another builder. The way one big housing complex of the State-owned Tamil Nadu Housing Board in the heart of Chennai has been arbitrarily allocated to politicians and businessmen close to the powers-that-be for ridiculously low rents is a case in point.<br /><br />In fact, ‘one big feared land scam’ was disclosed by the controversial IAS Officer, C Umashankar, who was recently suspended and later reinstated by the ruling DMK. In a recent complaint to the ‘National Commission for Scheduled Castes’, he alleged that “plots and houses of the Housing Board have been allotted to fictitious persons”. <br />He also alleged that a joint venture company, ‘Elnet Technologies Limited’, between State-owned ‘ELCOT’ and a private firm, had been given 26 acres of land by the Central Government for building an ‘IT Park’ and developing a Special Economic Zone at Pallikaranai on Chennai’s outskirts. <br /><br />“The company built 1.8 million square feet IT building in this IT-Park-cum-SEZ. The total value of the asset is more than Rs 700 crore.” But the company then mysteriously disappeared, “obviously with connivance of some officials and political heavyweights”, Umashankar alleged, adding, he had sent special reports to the Government on this scam.<br /><br />While the allegation by this honest IAS officer is yet to get anywhere near an investigation stage, two major land-grab charges that recently hit the headlines from Tamil Nadu relate to the Karnataka High Court former Chief Justice P D Dinakaran and former Chief Minister J Jayalalitha. <br /><br />Justice Dinakaran (transferred later from Karnataka) faces an impeachment motion in Parliament for allegedly encroaching over 190 acres of ‘poromboke (Government)’ land in his native village of Kaverirajapuram in Thiruvallur district. However, the Justice K P Sivasubramaniam commission of inquiry ‘found nothing specific’ against Jayalalitha with regard to CPI(M)’s complaint that 53 acres of land originally assigned to Dalits and other landless poor in Sirudhavur village in Kancheepuram district was “grabbed” by people close to the AIADMK leader. This has come as a huge relief to ‘Amma’ in the run-up to 2011 TN Assembly polls. <br /> <br />Dilli masala chai<br /><br />As land is highly scarce in Delhi, land sharks are always active in the national capital. Despite strict regulatory bodies, several land scams have shaken the Government over the years. The most infamous scam was unearthed in 2007 where a small time tea vendor- turned-contractor emerged as the kingpin in grabbing lands allotted to the poor. <br />Ashok Malhotra, the alleged mastermind, in collusion with several top officials of the Delhi Development Authority and Municipal Corporation of Delhi, was facing charges of grabbing lands worth over several hundred crores of rupees. <br /><br />The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which investigated the matter, had arrested over a dozen people and filed charge sheets. According to the CBI, these people had grabbed plots reserved for slum dwellers’ resettlement, by forging documents. It was believed that the kingpin, while running a small canteen in the Vidhan Sabha building of Delhi Government, befriended top politicians and officials and emerged as big time contractor. <br /><br />Malhotra, who wielded the highest clout over several governments, also owned a fleet of cars and a string of properties. Interestingly, despite a number of politicians’ names cropping up during the investigation, none of them have been arrested. </p>.<p>Karnataka scams </p>.<p>* In 1985, Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde was embroiled in the Revajeetu and NRI land allotment scandals. At the instance of Deve Gowda, the Justice Kuldip Singh Commission probed the latter and indicted Hegde. No action was taken by the then government.<br /><br />* In 1985-86, Deve Gowda, as minister, was caught in a controversy for allotting sites to his supporters in Mysore. The matter was referred to Lokayukta as well as CoD. There was no evidence to nail him. </p>.<p>(Inputs: Ajith Athrady in Delhi, Prashanta Paul in Kolkata, M R Venkatesh in Chennai.) </p>.<p>Related Stories </p>.<p><a href="../content/110706/pathbreaking-politicians.html">‘Pathbreaking’ politicians</a></p>.<p><a href="../content/110699/maharashtras-land-scandals.html">Maharashtra’s land scandals </a></p>
<p>Patel’s comment has a contemporary ring in the context of the countless scams across the country, involving grabbing of prime government land by politicians and their lobbyists, all in the name of development or public welfare.<br /><br />Mumbai’s Adarsh Housing Society scam, which has been hogging media prime time and space in the last one week, is ten years old. The irregularities in the Society acquiring a little less than an acre of super-prime land valued at Rs 34 crore — abutting critical army and navy defence establishments - was first highlighted in 2003. The acquisition was in the name of Kargil war heroes, who were to get, some posthumously, houses in the plush Colaba area of South Mumbai where two-bedroom flats could cost up to Rs 2 crore at 2003 prices. The beneficiaries of the 31-storey complex include politicians and their relatives, two former chiefs of the Army and one of naval staff, a Shiv Sena MLC, a promoter under CBI investigation, IAS officers, a local army commander and ‘Kargil Heroes’. Though the top ex-defence officers have since declined the flats claiming they were “not aware that it was meant for Kargil heroes”, all the VIP allotees will be on the investigating agencies’ radar for some time at least, and may be posed uncomfortable questions such as the source of the money for the super-costly flats, and whether such sources fall within the limits of ‘known sources’ of their income.<br /><br />Whether the investigation will reach a logical end is anybody’s guess. The investigators may be asked to bury the hatchet, so to speak, while the media, particularly visual media, is unlikely to remember the episode for long. If the Maharashtra Chief Minister and his colleagues can object to US department”s demand for their personal details as a security input for President Barak Obama’s Mumbai visit, one can imagine how much leeway might the government-appointed agencies get to investigate high-profile scams such as Adarsha.<br /><br />Lender of last resort<br /><br />Why are land scams increasing in cities across India? Because urban land is at a premium and a prime source of finance for political parties and their leaders. Up to the ‘60s, industrialists financed political parties. During Emergency, someone realised there were astronomical kickbacks in defence contracts. But the chief ministers don’t have access to these funds. They have to exploit urban real estate.<br /><br />The Opposition too does not expose the misdeeds of the ruling party because they believe, quite correctly, that their time will come next. Moreover, the CM and his colleagues override the city fathers and take important decisions for the ‘development’ of cities because they are not answerable to the people of these cities as they are not elected from there. This is true of Bangalore, Chennai and many other cities.<br /><br />Another fad is for land sharks and real estate businessmen to ‘buy up’ political party tickets to enter the State legislatures and Parliament, blurring the dividing line between political and business classes.<br /><br />The script is the same everywhere. A sampling: </p>.<p>Land reform to land scam<br /><br />In West Bengal, land used to be one of the core agenda for the Left parties. But after more than three decades in power, land scams have replaced land reforms. The irregularity in the allotment of a plot of land to a former Calcutta judge out of the Chief Minister’s discretionary quota invited the ire of the apex court. The court indicted the judge, Justice Bhagawati Prasad Banerjee, for compromising judicial authority to get a plot in the Salt Lake area of Kolkata.<br /><br />The CPM-led government was asked to evaluate the property constructed over that plot and give the corresponding money to him before taking over the premises within one year. <br /><br />Unfortunately, a thriving racket between some leaders of the ruling Left Front and urban land sharks, the real estate promoters and a mushrooming gang of criminals who sustain and thrive on that nexus, apparently escaped the notice of the court. Even a section of the sports fraternity has been roped into this nexus.<br /><br /> First, it was the international gold-medal winner athlete-turned CPM Member of Parliament Jyotirmoyee Sikder and her athlete coach Awtar Singh and now the national soccer players like Bhaskar Ganguli, Sashthi Duley, Dipankar Roy et al. Controversy over an out-of-turn allotment of land in prime Salt Lake area to former India cricket skipper Saurav Ganguly is yet to gather dust.</p>.<p>TN’s city boom<br /><br />Thanks to the economic liberalisation since 1990s, land has got even scarcer in Tamil Nadu. More so in the State’s urban landscape which has one of the highest extent of urbanisation in India at 44 per cent, next only to Maharashtra.<br /><br />And Greater Chennai metropolitan area, with a population of about 85 lakhs and which ‘Forbes’ Magazine recently said has joined the select list of Ahmedabad and Bangalore as the country’s fastest growing cities, is the locus of this silent transformation where land and home prices skyrocket. <br /><br />With most prime properties in the heart of the city still owned by Government or State-owned organisations who do not wish to relocate, “there is now lot more pressure on existing urban land unless satellite cities are formed or social infrastructure like schools move to semi-urban areas”, argued the builder. <br /><br />This trend is also reflected in the market prices. After a brief lull in the wake of the September 2008 global economic slowdown, Chennai’s property prices have shot up by 20 per cent, say real estate sources. In upper middle class areas like Adyar and Mylapore of South Chennai, property prices have shot up to a giddy Rs 15,000 per square feet, sources said, adding, “People are still ready to buy.” With Chennai to get a Metro Rail in another couple of years, property prices are bound to harden more, the sources add. <br />Again near Siruseri, 25 km from Chennai and alongside the ‘Old Mamallaparam Road’ developed as the ‘IT Corridor’, ‘lifestyle apartments’ are now being offered at Rs 2275 per square feet, which is still a good bargain for techies, say real estate developers. The anticipated investment flow into IT and related sectors amid a stock market boom has created a “powerful lobby controlling land” on the city’s fringe areas and extending into neighbouring Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur districts.<br /><br />There is no full-blown land or housing scam in the State as yet, a la the latest Mumbai housing scam, but “another Adarsh society is in the making here,” rued another builder. The way one big housing complex of the State-owned Tamil Nadu Housing Board in the heart of Chennai has been arbitrarily allocated to politicians and businessmen close to the powers-that-be for ridiculously low rents is a case in point.<br /><br />In fact, ‘one big feared land scam’ was disclosed by the controversial IAS Officer, C Umashankar, who was recently suspended and later reinstated by the ruling DMK. In a recent complaint to the ‘National Commission for Scheduled Castes’, he alleged that “plots and houses of the Housing Board have been allotted to fictitious persons”. <br />He also alleged that a joint venture company, ‘Elnet Technologies Limited’, between State-owned ‘ELCOT’ and a private firm, had been given 26 acres of land by the Central Government for building an ‘IT Park’ and developing a Special Economic Zone at Pallikaranai on Chennai’s outskirts. <br /><br />“The company built 1.8 million square feet IT building in this IT-Park-cum-SEZ. The total value of the asset is more than Rs 700 crore.” But the company then mysteriously disappeared, “obviously with connivance of some officials and political heavyweights”, Umashankar alleged, adding, he had sent special reports to the Government on this scam.<br /><br />While the allegation by this honest IAS officer is yet to get anywhere near an investigation stage, two major land-grab charges that recently hit the headlines from Tamil Nadu relate to the Karnataka High Court former Chief Justice P D Dinakaran and former Chief Minister J Jayalalitha. <br /><br />Justice Dinakaran (transferred later from Karnataka) faces an impeachment motion in Parliament for allegedly encroaching over 190 acres of ‘poromboke (Government)’ land in his native village of Kaverirajapuram in Thiruvallur district. However, the Justice K P Sivasubramaniam commission of inquiry ‘found nothing specific’ against Jayalalitha with regard to CPI(M)’s complaint that 53 acres of land originally assigned to Dalits and other landless poor in Sirudhavur village in Kancheepuram district was “grabbed” by people close to the AIADMK leader. This has come as a huge relief to ‘Amma’ in the run-up to 2011 TN Assembly polls. <br /> <br />Dilli masala chai<br /><br />As land is highly scarce in Delhi, land sharks are always active in the national capital. Despite strict regulatory bodies, several land scams have shaken the Government over the years. The most infamous scam was unearthed in 2007 where a small time tea vendor- turned-contractor emerged as the kingpin in grabbing lands allotted to the poor. <br />Ashok Malhotra, the alleged mastermind, in collusion with several top officials of the Delhi Development Authority and Municipal Corporation of Delhi, was facing charges of grabbing lands worth over several hundred crores of rupees. <br /><br />The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which investigated the matter, had arrested over a dozen people and filed charge sheets. According to the CBI, these people had grabbed plots reserved for slum dwellers’ resettlement, by forging documents. It was believed that the kingpin, while running a small canteen in the Vidhan Sabha building of Delhi Government, befriended top politicians and officials and emerged as big time contractor. <br /><br />Malhotra, who wielded the highest clout over several governments, also owned a fleet of cars and a string of properties. Interestingly, despite a number of politicians’ names cropping up during the investigation, none of them have been arrested. </p>.<p>Karnataka scams </p>.<p>* In 1985, Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde was embroiled in the Revajeetu and NRI land allotment scandals. At the instance of Deve Gowda, the Justice Kuldip Singh Commission probed the latter and indicted Hegde. No action was taken by the then government.<br /><br />* In 1985-86, Deve Gowda, as minister, was caught in a controversy for allotting sites to his supporters in Mysore. The matter was referred to Lokayukta as well as CoD. There was no evidence to nail him. </p>.<p>(Inputs: Ajith Athrady in Delhi, Prashanta Paul in Kolkata, M R Venkatesh in Chennai.) </p>.<p>Related Stories </p>.<p><a href="../content/110706/pathbreaking-politicians.html">‘Pathbreaking’ politicians</a></p>.<p><a href="../content/110699/maharashtras-land-scandals.html">Maharashtra’s land scandals </a></p>
