Times of
India: Nagpur: Tuesday, September 17, 2019.
Prashant
Pawar had obtained many documents related to VCA stadium and club house under
RTI Act and to bring out the violations
The
Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority (NMRDA) has regularized
Vidarbha Cricket Association’s (VCA) Jamtha International Cricket Stadium and
Club House. This comes after the stadium has hosted 33 internationals and a
number of national and local matches for 11 years without sanctions in place.
It has had to shell out extra money for this.
On
January 6, 2016, TOI had reported that the stadium and club house were
unauthorized as they did not have layout and building plan sanction. However,
Prakash Dixit and Shashank Manohar, the then VCA and BCCI president
respectively, had claimed that all permissions were in place.
NMRDA
officials told TOI that the VCA had to pay Rs8.13 crore for final approvals.
“Rs1.58 crore was for regularization of layout and Rs6.55 crore for building
plan. VCA deposited the amount and approvals were given on September 9. It is
the highest-ever charges from a single case in the history of metro region,”
they said.
The
amount is Rs2.5 core more than what any applicant would have had to pay today
for a similar project. The VCA had to cough up more for bringing the property
into use without having the sanctions in place. The next international match
scheduled at Jamtha stadium is a T20 tie between India and Bangladesh on
November 10.
TOI,
on October 7, 2013, had also reported that the stadium and club house lacked
fire NOC and compliance certificate. VCA then had installed fire safety systems
at the cost of over Rs4 crore and obtained fire compliance certificate from the
Maharashtra Fire Services on October 10, 2015.
According
to NMRDA officials, VCA the applied for occupancy certificate for the stadium
and club house on March 20, 2018. The NMRDA sought clarity on approvals from
the collector. On seeking legal opinion, the advocate general said no
environment clearance was applicable to the stadium and club house.
The
NMRDA then asked VCA to apply for approvals. “The process to verify and
granting occupancy certificate is going on,” the officials said.
When
TOI called up current VCA president Anand Jaiswal to ask why VCA decided to pay
the higher amount, he said, “I will not talk to TOI.”
RTI
activist Kamlesh Shah, TH Naidu, Ankita Shah and NGO Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’s
Prashant Pawar had obtained many documents related to VCA stadium and club
house under RTI Act and to bring out the violations.
Naidu
made repeated pleas to state information commission (SIC) for over two years
seeking VCA’s sanctioned plans from collector under RTI Act. The collector in
an affidavit on June 20, 2018 said it had not cleared the stadium and club
house building plan.
The
collector was the sanctioning authority for Jamtha area till 2010. It was later
replaced by the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT). Since, March 2017, the NMRDA is
the authority.
Pawar,
Ankita and Naidu have demanded action against all officials of collector’s
office, police, NIT, fire department and NMRDA for allowing matches in the
stadium and usage of club house for 11 years. “Permissions were also given for
last three years despite our complaints. Police did not register any offence.
For similar violations, officials of New Delhi and Chennai are not allowing
usage of a part of the cricket stadium there,” they said.
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