Nagpur: The Comptroller and Auditor
General of India (CAG) has opposed demolition of Mumbai`s scam
-hit Adarsh Housing Society building and termed the entire
episode as a classic example of "fence eating the crops".
In its report, tabled in Maharashtra Legislative
Assembly today, the Government auditor said the suggestion to
raze the 31-storey structure in upscale Colaba area is "hasty
and inadequately considered".
Its demolition would compound the problem. An option
would be for the building to be acquired by the Government and
used for Government housing, the top auditor maintained.
The society members who have paid for their flats may
be compensated as per law. Genuine war widows and deserving
ex-servicemen could be allotted the apartments, it noted.
The entire episode is a glaring example of dereliction
of duty and severe lack of probity and accountability which
needs to be very seriously investigated, the CAG report said.
"The entire episode of the Adarsh Cooperative Housing
Society is a classic example of fence eating the crops."
Promoters of the society were so confident of getting
allotment of land that even before registration of the society
and before handing over of the site on July 12, 2004, they
wrote for additional FSI (floor space index) from the adjacent
land in use by civic transport body BEST, the report noted.
To seek apartments in a prime location, a group of
select and powerful elite resorted to falsification of
records, suppression of facts and used the noble cause of
welfare of ex-servicemen and their widows for allotment, the
CAG stated.
The Adarsh issue came to the fore last year when it
was alleged that violations of rules took place at various
phases of construction of the high rise. CBI and a judicial
panel are probing into the irregularities.
PTI
