No wheeling-dealing in Lavasa project, claims state

The Maharashtra government on Tuesday claimed before the legislature that no special favour was shown to Lavasa Corporation, which is developing a premium hill station by acquiring 18 villages in Pune district's Mulshi and Velhe tehsils.

The BJP-Shiv Sena-led opposition, however, staged a walkout saying that revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat's reply did not mention anything about the hurried provisional environmental clearance the state gave to the project, and the stand taken by union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh, who has stalled work on the project till December-end.

"There is nothing wrong if the state encourages private investment in development of a hill station. In fact, all decisions taken on Lavasa in giving clearances are based on the policy formulated by the Shiv Sena-BJP government on development of private hill stations. Based on the policy, the then government has allowed creation of Amby Valley township near Lonavala. Now, if we used provisions of the same policy, why is the opposition seeing red?" asked Thorat in the lower house.

He also saw nothing wrong in allotting over 600 hectares of surplus land acquired under Land Ceiling Act to the private hill station, which changed several hands and names like Lake City Corporation since the early '90s before it took shape as Lavasa a decade later.

"Indeed, there were some irregularities. For instance, the Krishna Valley Corporation which gave away its 141 hectares land acquired for the dam project to Lavasa was irregular per se because it had failed to inform the revenue department about it," said Thorat.

However, he said the transfer was not illegal as the Krishna Valley Act had provided for leasing of land for purpose of tourism, beautification and development. The land was provided to Lavasa on a 30-year lease.