Mumbai, July 20: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said his government will will scrap the Dharavi slum redevelopment project in Mumbai tender if his party comes to power after the Maharashtra assembly election.
Opposing the sops being offered for Dharavi redevelopment project, Uddhav Thackeray, while addressing a press conference, said, “We won’t let it happen.”
“Is it Dharavi redevelopment or ‘Ladka Mitra Yojna’ (favourite friend scheme),” Uddhav Thackeray said, adding “We will not give additional sops and if required, call for a fresh tender after coming to power.”
The multi-crore Dharavi slum redevelopment project involves no land transfer to the Adani group but to the Maharashtra government’s departments, and the Ahmedabad-based conglomerate, as a project developer, will build houses that will be handed over to the same departments for allotment to residents of Asia’s biggest slums, news agency PTI reported earlier.
Speaking in the Maharashtra assembly on budgetary demands of the revenue department, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan earlier this month claimed the Dharavi slum redevelopment project was a “big scam” and demanded a white paper on it from the Maharashtra government.
Chavan said the entire project will be scrapped once there is a change in government after the state assembly polls due in October.
Dharavi is Mumbai’s biggest slum cluster. The Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT), both part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, have been opposing the multi-billion dollar Dharavi redevelopment project being executed by the Adani group.
“The Dharavi redevelopment project is a big scam and the state government should come out with a white paper, or else when the next government comes to power in October the entire project will be scrapped,” Chavan said.
The former state chief minister asked if the recent handing over of a dairy land in Kurla for the Dharavi redevelopment project was mentioned in the original tender. There is no mention which government land is being given for Dharavi redevelopment…whether it is Deonar, Mulund, salt pan land, he said.
This should be investigated as to how much government revenue loss is there,” the Congress leader said. He claimed that government land was being given to industrialists at very low prices and all revenue entitled to the government has been waived.
Later, revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil assured that a white paper will be issued on the Dharavi project. The white paper will include details of the tender process, he said.
