Govt de-notifies a record 12k hectares within 3 yrs

De-notification of industrial land in state is highest during Subhash Desai's tenure; 4 Cong ministers had de-notified 20,716 hectares land in 12 years

In the last 15 years, from 2002 to 2017, around 32,000 hectares industrial land has been de-notified by the Maharashtra government. Out of which, 12168.8812 hectares land, the highest number, was de-notified during the three-year tenure of Subhash Desai, Industries Minister in the Devendra Fadnavis-led government. Till now, a wrong assumption was being spread that the total land that was de-notified is 20,716 hectares, that was during the tenure of four Congress chief ministers from 2002 to 2014.

Officials from industries department revealed that the de-notification of land is at a highest record of land to be denotified has been within a span of the last three years. This is in contrast to the total de-notification undertaken in 15 years.

Desai took the decision to de-notify industrial land in Malegaon within the first 50 days of taking charge and

it is highest-ever in his tenure till date ad-measuring 2752.6800 hectares. Sena joined Fadnavis government on December 5, 2014 and Desai took the decision on January 22, 2015.

Desai, a Shiv Sena leader, was accused of de-notifying land in Nashik industrial area to favour a developer during the monsoon session in 2017. Chief Minister Fadnavis had appointed a committee headed by K P Bakshi, retired bureaucrat to probe the issue. Later, the scope of the committee was tweaked and the members were to probe cases of de-notified of land from 2002 to 2017.

Bakshi committee submitted its report to the state government on March 21 and Fadnavis made a statement in Assembly on March 25, the last day of the budget session. Fadnavis gave a clean chit to Desai and said the decision he had taken were based on guidelines. However, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Leader of Opposition in th Assembly and Dhanajay Munde, LoP in Council, slammed Fadnavis and criticised him for giving a clean chit to Desai.

The documents in possession of Free Press Journal reveals that Desai has de-notified 12168.8812 hectares of industrial land in 58 cases from February 4, 2015 to April 10, 2017. Out of the total de-notified land, 11476.225 hectares land belongs to private owner and 692.769 hectares belongs to the government.

Following the highest de-notifying of land from Malegaon industrial area, Desai de-notified Khed Special Economic Zone in phase-III (1866.3200 hectares), Kasarde Industrial area in Ratnagiri (1393.4622 hectares), Ranjangaon phase-I in Pune (811.7300 hectares), Karla industrial area in Pune (731.8753 hectares), additional Baramati industrial area (676.5600 hectares), Martala in Nanded (468.6900 hectares) and many more.

Desai said he did not de-notify any government land. “I took the decision to de-notify the land where people had opposed land acquisition by state. The land owners or farmers had not accepted compensation and in cases where land owners demanded a huge rate of compensation, which was unaffordable for Maharashtra Industries Development Corporation. Only such land was de-notified,” defended Desai.