Mumbai:
Its name is Aashirwad which means "blessings". Just like Adarsh which means "ideal". These are names of buildings in Mumbai, but ironically they have become symbols of the sordid nexus between politicians, babus and builders.
In Andheri West, one of Mumbai's more expensive areas, a 21-storey building stands unoccupied. It was certainly on the cusp of paying rich dividends for several politicians and bureaucrats. Though the construction seems completed, the flats have still not been fully furnished. Workers say all activity stopped 7-8 months ago and they don't know why.
Aashirwad appears to be a shameful sequel to the Adarsh building scam, where politicians, defence personnel and civil servants allegedly colluded to get flats in a building meant for war veterans and widows of martyrs of the Kargil War. It was built on government-owned land and politicians are accused of using their clout to get flats that were three times the size they were entitled too.
Moreover, they declared unbelievably low incomes which were much lower than the income and assets they declared in their election affidavits. In the paperwork submitted as part of their applications for apartments, Vasant Purkhe, a state minister from the ruling Congress, says he earns Rs 2500 a month. But the Election Commission's records show his assets adding upto 78 lakhs. Sunil Deshmukh, who was an MLA from the Congress, says his income per month is only Rs 10,600, whereas his known assets are worth 2.3 crores. And Ram Raje Nimbalkar from the Nationalist Congress Party or NCP, lists his income as Rs 5,500 per month though his assets are recorded at Rs 3 crores.
In his defence, Nimbalkar told NDTV that the income criterion to avail a government flat is not applicable to public representatives and hence they committed no crime.
Some people who scored flats here owned flats in other government housing societies in Mumbai, either directly or through spouses - another major violation of the rules.
The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that has exposed the brazen violations and intent of politicians at Aashirwad has also found senior politicians allotting land at throwaway prices to trusts run by their families. In most cases, the government incurred huge losses, while the land that was assigned to the trusts was not put to the declared use like setting up educational institutions.