Maharashtra irrigation scam: Government's white paper ignores malpractices

MUMBAI: The recently released white paper on irrigation projects in Maharashtra is on expected lines. Skirting the issue of large scale corruption and gross malpractices over the past decade, the paper, ironically prepared by the irrigation department itself, is just a status update of mostly incomplete projects across the state.

State chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who ordered the white paper last May following a TOI expose about huge cost escalations in two dam projects in Raigad district near Mumbai, knew that he was skating on thin ice. The water resources department, which doled out thousands of crores of contracts to selected contractors, is controlled by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which runs the alliance government along with Chavan's Congress Party.

The CM should have ordered a criminal investigation into the scam, which has had serious ramifications for farmers, especially in places like the drought-prone region of Vidarbha where over 8,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past decade. But political compulsions and threat to the stability of the Congress-NCP alliance forced him to circumvent the controversy by announcing the white paper.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar, who resigned as deputy chief minister last September following a series of exposes in TOI, is believed to be desperate to make a comeback in the government based on the findings of the white paper, which many in official circles described as a "whitewash". Pawar was the state's water resources minister between 1999 and 2010, when most of the dubious contracts were awarded to select contractors. Already, political circles are agog with talks about a faction within the NCP trying to scuttle Pawar's reentry plans.

According to an estimate, as much as Rs 35,000crore may havebeen siphoned off by the politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus in dud irrigation projects in the past ten years.

Next week, all eyes will be on the winter session of the state assembly in Nagpur where the irrigation scam is likely to take centre stage. One expects little from the opposition Shiv Sena in raking up the issue and putting the government on the mat.

The party seems to be more concerned about retaining the make-shift memorial for its late founder Bal Thackeray at Mumbai's Shivaji Park. Its partner, the BJP, has demanded police action against Pawar, but sources said some of its leaders may have already cut a deal with the NCP to tone down the attack.

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