Maharashtra’s murky politics – Politician – Contractor nexus on one hand, Ruling- Opposition partnership on the other hand…
Maharashtra Series - 2
Maharashtra’s murky politics – Politician – Contractor nexus on one hand, Ruling- Opposition partnership on the other hand…
The birth of Maharashtra’s current model of irrigation corporations began during the Sena-BJP regime, inspired by the Gujarat model of corporations that issued bonds to fund their projects.
The Krishna Valley Irrigation Development Corporation was the first, formed in 1996, followed by corporations in each of the state’s regions that matched the political interests of the leaders of the Shiv Sena – BJP regime – Manohar Joshi wanted a corporation for the Konkan, Eknath Khadse of the BJP wanted one for the Khandesh region of northern Maharashtra, and so on.
IIIn theory, these corporations were meant to be semi-autonomous entities, run by professionals. In practice, they got hijacked by the politician-contractor nexus. Every tender was rigged in favour of a particular contractor. And the ‘Gandhiji ko baat ke khaav’ motto- let us split the kitty (Gandhiji – because his picture is on the currency) - was invoked so no one quarreled. Everyone involved – politicians, officials, contractors – knew the rules and followed them to the T.
It was rumoured that the going rate for a kickback under the Sena-BJP rule was 5% of the project cost. This was paid entirely to the minister, who would divide it as he wished – between himself and his party, key bosses, etc. Officials in irrigation department were paid cash, usually a fixed amount, not very large, and not linked to the cost of the project.
This rule changed when the Congress-NCP came to power. The rate card for getting the tender rose to 10%: 7% for the minister and 1% each for the executive engineer, chief engineer, and so on.
It was in everyone’s interest to jack up the cost of the project, since higher costs meant higher kickbacks to politicians and officials, and higher profits to the contractors. So a project worth say Rs 80 crore would be padded up to be shown as Rs 100 crore project. That’s phase 1.
Phase 2 was to ensure that even the lowest bid was higher than the cost of the project. This was easy since everyone was in the loop. So the lowest tender bid for a project would be, say, Rs 130 crore. Since any bid higher than 5% of the project cost needed to go to the financial department for clearance, the corporation would revise the costs downwards after the tender was opened, so that a bid which was, say, 25% higher would be shown as 4.98% higher. Tender documents sourced through RTI’s queries show bid after bid revised to magically falling just short of 5% : 4.98 %, 4.99%, 4.7%, etc.
Phase 3: Once the project got underway, there was a New rate card for submitting monthly bills to the corporation: 4% of the bill amount went to the minister, and a percent each to the officials.
It is therefore also in everyone’s interests to keep the project pending for as long as possible. The longer the project dragged on, the more its cost went up, and the more scope for making still more money.
Now it will become clear to all as to why Maharashtra is littered with half-completed projects, some of whose costs have escalated as much as 500%. And why after spending Rs 70,000 crore, there’s been an increase in irrigated area of only 0.1%.
It’s also clear why most of the contract work falls into the hands of a tightly knit group of contractors, prominently - Avinash Bhonsale, Ajay Sancheti’s SMS Infrastructure, D Thakkar Construction, Mhaiskar’s IRB and FA Construction.
All have terrific political contacts across party lines (like Avinash Bhonsale, who got his first contract during the Sena-BJP regime, and is now seen as close to the Pawars) or are directly in politics (like Ajay Sancheti and Mitesh Bhangdia, both recently inducted into the BJP as Rajya Sabha MP and MLC respectively). And of course, they have all become overnight millionaires.
This wonderful arrangement carried on for so long was because of a conspiracy of silence – between the ruling party and the opposition party. The motto of ‘Gandhiji ko baat ke khaav’ working perfectly for both so long.
So what went wrong now? How so much information got leaked and how an Opposition leader was allowed to go berserk with his allegations against the ruling party, till they decided that enough was enough and leaked ‘insider information’ about the opposition party’s President and turned the tables..?
All this happened due to political breaking of ranks. Until recently, the Congress, which leads the coalition, had free hand to run Mumbai real estate, while NCP could do what it wanted with irrigation.
Both parties would tacitly stay out of each other’s business. But Prithviraj Chavan came along and upset the apple cart. He called for a white paper on irrigation; he said projects were not being completed, and that the people want answers. So soon he found that taking on Ajit Pawar has its political consequences.
There is an uneasy truce at the moment. But in the process, between a disgruntled contractor and a chief minister who likes to see himself as a crusader, Maharashtra’s sordid politician-irrigation contractor nexus is out in the open. So also in the open is the Ruling party – opposition party partnership.
That is why, we find that inspite of so many pressing issues before the people, the Opposition is silent and barely asking questions in the assembly. Rather wasting time by stalling the proceedings – so people feel some protest is going on – but actually, it’s a arrangement to fool the people.
So where does Maharashtra head ? The people of the state want water. And justice. The white paper on the irrigation scam has proved to be a classical attempt to confuse people by senseless jugglery of statistics and white wash the already short memory of people.
- Dayanand Nene
Maharashtra’s murky politics – Politician – Contractor nexus on one hand, Ruling- Opposition partnership on the other hand…
The birth of Maharashtra’s current model of irrigation corporations began during the Sena-BJP regime, inspired by the Gujarat model of corporations that issued bonds to fund their projects.
The Krishna Valley Irrigation Development Corporation was the first, formed in 1996, followed by corporations in each of the state’s regions that matched the political interests of the leaders of the Shiv Sena – BJP regime – Manohar Joshi wanted a corporation for the Konkan, Eknath Khadse of the BJP wanted one for the Khandesh region of northern Maharashtra, and so on.
IIIn theory, these corporations were meant to be semi-autonomous entities, run by professionals. In practice, they got hijacked by the politician-contractor nexus. Every tender was rigged in favour of a particular contractor. And the ‘Gandhiji ko baat ke khaav’ motto- let us split the kitty (Gandhiji – because his picture is on the currency) - was invoked so no one quarreled. Everyone involved – politicians, officials, contractors – knew the rules and followed them to the T.
It was rumoured that the going rate for a kickback under the Sena-BJP rule was 5% of the project cost. This was paid entirely to the minister, who would divide it as he wished – between himself and his party, key bosses, etc. Officials in irrigation department were paid cash, usually a fixed amount, not very large, and not linked to the cost of the project.
This rule changed when the Congress-NCP came to power. The rate card for getting the tender rose to 10%: 7% for the minister and 1% each for the executive engineer, chief engineer, and so on.
It was in everyone’s interest to jack up the cost of the project, since higher costs meant higher kickbacks to politicians and officials, and higher profits to the contractors. So a project worth say Rs 80 crore would be padded up to be shown as Rs 100 crore project. That’s phase 1.
Phase 2 was to ensure that even the lowest bid was higher than the cost of the project. This was easy since everyone was in the loop. So the lowest tender bid for a project would be, say, Rs 130 crore. Since any bid higher than 5% of the project cost needed to go to the financial department for clearance, the corporation would revise the costs downwards after the tender was opened, so that a bid which was, say, 25% higher would be shown as 4.98% higher. Tender documents sourced through RTI’s queries show bid after bid revised to magically falling just short of 5% : 4.98 %, 4.99%, 4.7%, etc.
Phase 3: Once the project got underway, there was a New rate card for submitting monthly bills to the corporation: 4% of the bill amount went to the minister, and a percent each to the officials.
It is therefore also in everyone’s interests to keep the project pending for as long as possible. The longer the project dragged on, the more its cost went up, and the more scope for making still more money.
Now it will become clear to all as to why Maharashtra is littered with half-completed projects, some of whose costs have escalated as much as 500%. And why after spending Rs 70,000 crore, there’s been an increase in irrigated area of only 0.1%.
It’s also clear why most of the contract work falls into the hands of a tightly knit group of contractors, prominently - Avinash Bhonsale, Ajay Sancheti’s SMS Infrastructure, D Thakkar Construction, Mhaiskar’s IRB and FA Construction.
All have terrific political contacts across party lines (like Avinash Bhonsale, who got his first contract during the Sena-BJP regime, and is now seen as close to the Pawars) or are directly in politics (like Ajay Sancheti and Mitesh Bhangdia, both recently inducted into the BJP as Rajya Sabha MP and MLC respectively). And of course, they have all become overnight millionaires.
This wonderful arrangement carried on for so long was because of a conspiracy of silence – between the ruling party and the opposition party. The motto of ‘Gandhiji ko baat ke khaav’ working perfectly for both so long.
So what went wrong now? How so much information got leaked and how an Opposition leader was allowed to go berserk with his allegations against the ruling party, till they decided that enough was enough and leaked ‘insider information’ about the opposition party’s President and turned the tables..?
All this happened due to political breaking of ranks. Until recently, the Congress, which leads the coalition, had free hand to run Mumbai real estate, while NCP could do what it wanted with irrigation.
Both parties would tacitly stay out of each other’s business. But Prithviraj Chavan came along and upset the apple cart. He called for a white paper on irrigation; he said projects were not being completed, and that the people want answers. So soon he found that taking on Ajit Pawar has its political consequences.
There is an uneasy truce at the moment. But in the process, between a disgruntled contractor and a chief minister who likes to see himself as a crusader, Maharashtra’s sordid politician-irrigation contractor nexus is out in the open. So also in the open is the Ruling party – opposition party partnership.
That is why, we find that inspite of so many pressing issues before the people, the Opposition is silent and barely asking questions in the assembly. Rather wasting time by stalling the proceedings – so people feel some protest is going on – but actually, it’s a arrangement to fool the people.
So where does Maharashtra head ? The people of the state want water. And justice. The white paper on the irrigation scam has proved to be a classical attempt to confuse people by senseless jugglery of statistics and white wash the already short memory of people.
- Dayanand Nene
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