In last 9 years, MMRDA has spent over Rs 3 crore on foundation stone-laying ceremonies

Indian Express: Mumbai: Monday, November 30, 2015.

In the last nine years, the city’s development authority has spent at least Rs 3.3 crore on conducting ceremonies to lay the foundation stone for infrastructure projects and high-profile inaugurations, data obtained by The Indian Express under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed.

The RTI reply also maintains that of the 16 such events that the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has organised, at least 13 were held in the run-up to either the Mumbai civic polls, Lok Sabha elections or Assembly elections. Several Union, state ministers and local area representatives have attended these events, making speeches about their parties’ prowess.

For instance, the most recent such ceremony was the one in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed a bhoomipujan for a grand Rs 425-crore sea-facing memorial for Dr. B R Ambedkar, a long-standing demand from the Dalit community, on the eve of the Bihar assembly polls. The event was seen as the BJP-led government’s attempt to reach out to the Dalits and other backward classes with Modi even making a strong statement on the government’s intent to continue with quotas for the communities, amid a political controversy over reservations.

The MMRDA spent Rs 62.86 lakh in organising the event in the Bandra Kurla Complex, placing advertisements for it, printing invitation cards, brochures, banners, stage design and so on. Shailesh Gandhi, former chief information commissioner, said, “These events are vote-gathering exercises at the expense of the public.

The fact that these functions peak just before elections show that. I don’t see the need for such elaborate functions to announce projects or declare them open for the public. They are a waste of public money, and in fact inconvenience people by adding to traffic congestion.” Similarly, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was the chief guest at seven such functions — two bhoomipujans and five inauguration ceremonies ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly polls.

As per data obtained from the MMRDA, the senior Congress leader had performed two bhoomipujans in August 2014 — one for a Thane-Vitawa skywalk and another for a Rs 23,136-crore Colaba-Bandra-Seepz underground Metro corridor, the construction of which has still not begun. Besides, between June 2013 and June 2014, Chavan also cut ribbons for the Eastern Freeway, Sahar elevated road, the Panjarpol-Ghatkopar link road that was the last stretch of the freeway, the city’s first monorail and the city’s first Metro services.

Excluding the inauguration of the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro, which the Reliance Infrastructure-led Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL) had arranged, the MMRDA has spent at least Rs 1.03 crore on these, as per information under the RTI. The bhoomipujan for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro held near the Marol Fire Brigade Station was the most expensive of the seven events, pegged at Rs 77.84 lakh.

At each of these events, Chavan highlighted the achievements of the MMRDA, which was a Congress portfolio then, elaborating on how the government has rapidly created transport infrastructure that has changed Mumbai despite the complexities involved. On every occasion, he patiently explained the difference between brown-field and green-field projects, and how his government had achieved so much even in a difficult brown-field environment in Mumbai, the Congress’ main poll pitch.

Likewise, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid the foundation for the city’s first Metro and the then Congress Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had held a bhoomipujan for 16 new flyovers in the city in June and December 2006, respectively, when Mumbai was gearing up for civic polls in February 2007. Ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha election, there were two ceremonies to launch the Mumbai monorail project.

The first function was solely for the monorail in November 2008, and Manmohan Singh was the chief guest. The second ceremony was held within three months in February 2009 when former Congress Chief Minister Ashok Chavan launched the monorail project and announced a skywalk at Chembur railway station and a foot over-bridge at Siddharth Nagar in an event that billed Rs 40.77 lakh to the MMRDA.

The Congress-NCP government flagged off two more infrastructure works that year conducting elaborate functions. In August 2009, the then President Pratibha Patil laid the foundation stone for the Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd elevated Metro rail, a project that never took off and was ultimately scrapped five years later. The event cost Rs 30.03 lakh in advertising expenses, according to data from the MMRDA.

The same month, Ashok Chavan performed another bhoomipujan, this time for a flyover at the Amar Mahal junction in Chembur and the Panjarpol-Ghatkopar link road, which was the third phase of the Eastern Freeway, a separate ceremony for which had been held in January 2008 under the then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Dilip Kawathkar, MMRDA spokesperson, said, “It is not right to say that bhoomipujans are held due to political considerations. Once our authority approves a project, it is a custom to conduct a bhoomipujan, and hence we do it.”