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#DNAExclusive: 60k acres of land denotified in 3 years by Maharashtra minister Subhash Desai

Industries min allegedly denotified land without mandatory auction

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In what could be another embarrassment for the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena government, it has been revealed that a whopping 60,000 acres of land has been denotified over the last three years by the Industries Minister Subhash Desai.

DNA is in possession of documents that suggest that the minister denotified land across the state between 2014-2017.

As much as 30,695 acres of land was denotified in Nagpur, followed by 9,377 acres in Nasik, and 8,259 acres in Pune region.

Besides this, the Industries Minister also denotified 3,444 acres in Ratnagiri, 3032 acres in Amaravati region, 1,913 acres in Kolhapur, 1,432 acres in Sangali, 937 acres in Panvel, and 731 acres in Latur.

What is likely to put the minister on a tricky ground is that the land has been denotified without auction which is mandatory under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act, 32 (1).

How does the process work?

Maharashtra government has the right to identify land that it may need for projects.

The land, thus identified, is notified by the government, which mandates the owner to give possession of the land to the government in lieu of compensation decided by the government from time to time.

Once notified, the owner of the land cannot sell, or transfer the rights to anyone other than the state. Often the land owners agitate or go to court seeking removal of notification, since the government departments tend to offer much lower compensation. Once notified, government goes ahead with stamping the deed.

The land thus acquired, cannot be denotified arbitrarily — it must be given to another department for project, or auction it so that the government gets maximum benefit.

Sources claim Desai did not follow this and simply denotified vast tracts of land.

Desai on his part, however, insisted he had followed all procedures. "Congress-NCP regime denotified more land than I ever did. I am prepared to answer every question about this on the floor of the House," Desai said.

Interestingly, Desai's own department needs over 50,000 acres of land to set up new industries after several Memoranda of Understanding signed under the Make in India and Make in Maharashtra banner.

"Applications are pending as we do not have adequate land to be allotted to various industrials firms. We are ready to pay more than market rate, but are unable to get land. On the other hand, we are denotifying land. This is both very unfortunate and contradictory," said a senior government official requesting anonymity.

NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik demanded a thorough inquiry into all denotification decisions made by Desai. "Desai should step down and if he refuses to do so, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should seek his resignation pending inquiry," Malik said.

I’M CLEAN: DESAI

  • Sources claim that Subhash Desai did not follow all procedures and simply denotified vast tracts of land.
     
  • Desai, however, said that he had followed all govt procedures and will answer all questions in the House.
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