Devendra Fadnavis govt wanted to commercially use Aarey land: Congress

The site of Aarey for the metro car-shed was chosen by the Fadnavis government only from a commercial point of view, said Maharashtra Congress

Amid BJP’s attacks over shifting the Mumbai Metro car-shed project from Aarey Milk Colony to Kanjur Marg, the Maharashtra Congress on Saturday turned tables and alleged that the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led dispensartion wanted to commercially use the Aarey land.

“The site of Aarey for the metro car-shed was chosen by the Fadnavis government only from a commercial point of view. The proposal for the Kanjur Marg site was deliberately rejected. It has now been proved that Fadnavis government lied on saying a person will have to be paid Rs 5,000 crore for the Kanjur Marg land,” Maharashtra Congress spokesperson and general secretary Sachin Sawant said.

“Despite knowing that the Metro project in Aarey Milk Colony required only 20 hectares of land, 62 hectares of land was earmarked for it so that the remaining 41 hectares of land could be commercially exploited,” he said.

Sawant said that the technical committee set up by the Fadnavis government had said that if the state government did not allot land at Kanjur Marg for the Metro car-shed, then in order to save trees from being hacked, the project had to be implemented on 20.82 hectares instead of 30 hectares.

“The Fadnavis government kept the land in Kanjur marg under wraps and told the public that the project would be implemented on 25 hectares of land in Aarey, but when the state government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2019, the affidavit was accompanied by a plan for the Aarey project site in which the area for the project was shown as 61.6 hectares. Fadnavis should answer as to why this additional 40 hectares of land was required,” he said.