Inquiry panel tears into Cidco allotments

MUMBAI: Four months after TOI first exposed the Cidco land scam in Navi Mumbai, a state government-appointed inquiry committee has recommended cancellation of a 12-acre hotel plot allotted to Pune-based builder Avinash Bhosale in 2008.

TOI has learnt that the inquiry officer, urban development secretary T C Benjamin, has recommended cancellation of another Cidco plot as well as action against 10 more land allotments made by Cidco during the tenure of its then managing director G S Gill.
A series of reports in this newspaper last July exposed how the politically well-connected Bhosale benefitted to the tune of Rs 275 crore after City Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) allowed residential construction on half of this plot, which was exclusively reserved for a hotel. A residential reservation has much greater value than for a hotel.

Two years ago, Bhosale had emerged as the highest bidder for this plot reserved by Cidco for a hotel on Palm Beach Road in Navi Mumbai when his company Metropolis Hotels quoted Rs 282 crore. Just days before his retirement early this year, the then Cidco managing director G S Gill controversially permitted half of the plot to be converted for residential purposes.

Bhosale sold the 6-acre residential portion to Mumbai-based Dheeraj Group for Rs 275 crore. Following the TOI expose, then CM Ashok Chavan stayed the transaction and ordered an inquiry into all such sales approved by Cidco six months prior to Gill’s retirement in March 2010.

Now, government has appointed another IAS officer Sunil Soni to carry out a seperate probe into role of Cidco board of which Benjamin himself is a member. Soni’s inquiry has nailed the Cidco board for arbitrarily allotting eight more plots, mainly in Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Aurangabad.

Government sources told TOI that CM Prithviraj Chavan would be briefed about what needs to be done against Cidco officials, including Gill. The inquiry conducted by Benjamin suggested that the entire 12-acre land allotment be cancelled because Cidco’s decision to convert part of the plot into residential gave an unfair advantage to the winning bidder.

‘‘The other bidders were not aware nor told that they had the option of converting part of the plot into residential before the bids were opened in July 2008. If all the competiting developers had known about this option, the plot would have fetched a much higher price than the Rs 282 crore quoted by Bhosale,’’ said a government source.