Under flak from various quarters for the largesse received from the Congress-led DF Government, Bag Film Educational Society (BFES) — a trust with which Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla and his wife are associated — has formally asked the Prithviraj Chavan dispensation to take back two prime plots of reserved land allotted to it on a 15-year lease for a nominal sum.
More than two months after a chastened Union Minister — who was the Secretary of the BFES when the allotted the land in 2008 — announced that he would return two plots of prime lands costing an estimated Rs 100 crore — to the DF Government, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) confirmed on Friday that it had received a letter from the Shukla-linked trust requesting the State Government to take back the land allotted to it.
“BAG Films has written to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan expressing its readiness to surrender the land and asking the State Government to initiate the process of taking back the land from it. Accordingly, the CM has directed Additional Chief Secretary (revenue) to expedite the process,” a senior official in the CMO said.
In an apparent political largesse doled out the Shukla-run trust, the DF Government had allotted two prime plots of reserved land near the Country Club at Andheri’s Amboli locality in north-Mumbai on a 15 year lease, in 2008 at 1976 rates.
The first allotted plot of land — admeasuring 2,821 sq metres, had been reserved for a primary school, for a lease sum of 98,735, while the adjoining plot of land measuring 534.70 sq mt plot, which had been reserved for a playground and was leased out for a nominal sum of Rs 6,309. Both these plots, market value of which is currently around Rs 100 crore, had been leased out for 15 years on the recommendation of the then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
After a controversy over the generous land allotment made to BFES by the DF Government broke out in the media more than two months back, Shukha through a letter to the Chief Minister had offered to return the two plots of land to the Government. However, Shukla found himself in an embarrassing situation after BJP leader Kirit Somaiya found through his RTI queries made to various Government departments that the Union Minister — contrary to the offer — had not in reality initiated the process of surrender of land to the land. It is in the context, the BFES has written to the State Government, requesting it to initiate the process of taking back the two plots of land given to it on a 15-year lease.
On his part, Shukla has all along maintained that no irregularity had been committed in the allotment of land to his educational trust by the State Government, since the allotment had been made along the lines of similar allotments made to other educational institutions. He has also dismissed in the past the speculation about his wanting to commercially exploit the two plots of land, saying that the land would be used for the intended purposes of running a primary school with a play ground attached to it.
Shukla’s wife Anuradha Prasad had recently attributed the delay in the start of primary on the allotted land to the fact that there were encroachments on the two plots. According to the CMO, the BFES had applied for the land at Amobili for setting up an educational complex at Andheri’s Amboli locality in north Mumbai, in 2007.