Misuse of land allotted at paltry rates: 4 years after CAG report, state yet to decide action

In 2012, the CAG, naming 12 institutions controlled by senior politicians (mostly from Congress and NCP) and leading business houses, had come down heavily on the Maharashtra government for “glaring irregularities in allotment of land for housing and education” and for “overlooking misuse of land allotted at concessional rates”. While pushing for revision of the government’s policy for land allotment for educational and charitable purposes, the CAG had also sought “action” as per law against those who had violated the norms.

At that time, Fadnavis and the then leader of the Opposition Eknath Khadse, who is now the revenue minister, had attacked the Congress-NCP over the “land largesse” and demanded action against the institutions.

On Saturday, Fadnavis said the CAG report was “pending with the state legislative committee”. “I will examine,” he added.
Khadse, meanwhile, said, “Norms permit the collector’s office to resume lands or penalise institutions found violating norms. Such action has already been taken in some cases, but I will direct authorities for a drive to identify misuse on a case-to-case basis. Even we (the government) are of the opinion that action must be initiated in case of violations.”

He added, “Taking back plots might not be feasible in all cases. One must review matters on a case-to-case basis and even take social implications into account.”

The CAG report had details how these land violations — “abetted by official ineptness, indifference, or collusion” — caused a loss to the public exchequer while defeating the very purpose of the allotments.

“Being a premium asset with increasing value, land management is to be dealt with judiciously. However, neither the government nor the collector (custodian of government lands in a district) has any database of land,” the CAG report had said. Besides action on the audit objections that it had raised, the CAG had rapped the government for non-existence of the “collector-headed breaches panel” that is responsible under norms for monitoring utilisation of the allotted land for the “lawful purpose”. Senior officials confirmed that such panels were still not in place.

Incidentally, while Fadnavis announced the revision of the land allotment rule on Friday, a senior state functionary said the original proposal in this regard had been moved in 2013 following the CAG’s rap. “The valuation of lands allotted for purposes such as schools, colleges, charitable institutions, hospitals to private institutions at concessional rates is based of government resolutions that were issued 18 to 35 years back. Considering the fact that land is a premium asset with ever increasing value in Maharashtra and also taking into account the fact that it is a source of revenue, it is necessary to have a re-look at the criteria fixed for valuation, especially now that education is no longer a philanthropic activity in urban areas,” the report had said.

Senior officials too confirmed that another important recommendation by CAG for maintaining a thorough database of allotted land and periodic inspections had remained on paper.