29 October,2020 07:07 AM IST | Mumbai | Sanjeev Shivadekar
The plot was bought by Nishalp Realties in 2010
The private firm - Nishalp Realties - that the civic body bought an encroached land worth over Rs 349 crore from, made gains of nearly Rs 346 crore through the deal. mid-day had reported about the deal on October 23. Nishalp Realties had bought the plot in Eksar village in 2010 for Rs 2.55 crore. Effectively, within a span of 10 years, Nishalp Realties, headed by Alpesh Ajmera, has made a profit of 13,556 per cent with the sale.
The cost of the land has taken those in the BMC corridors and the political fraternity aback. The acquisition was made this year despite being shot down by the BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi in 2019 over the encroachment.
Investigations done by mid-day reveal that Nishalp Realities purchased the plot from the Mascarenhas family in 2010. Accordingly, in September 2010, a conveyance deed was signed and registered. The value of the deal in the documents registered with the state government has been mentioned as Rs 2.55 crore. Within a year of the purchase, Ajmera's firm was about to make a profit as the BMC proposed to acquire it at Rs 54 crore. However, the proposal tabled in 2011 was then shot down by the BMC's Improvements Committee.
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The conveyance deed document shows the cost at which Nishalp Realties bought the land from Mascarenhas family
Corporators from opposition parties in the BMC and city-based activists smell something fishy in the deal due to the price of the land.
The plot, located at Eksar village, measures around 22,000 sqm and has a reservation for a maternity home and a playground. Currently, it has over 1,600 slums-dwellings. Rais Shaikh, Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA from Bhiwandi and corporator from Madanpura has demanded a CID probe in the deal.
Meanwhile, Ravi Raja, Congress corporator in the BMC, urged current BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal to initiate the process to cancel the deal and recover the money. "The BMC should appoint a good counsellor and fight this case to recover its money," Ravi Raja said. He added that the state's revenue department too should have done its due diligence when the proposal was at its table for formalities to acquire the land.
When told that the revenue portfolio is with the Congress in the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government, the Congress corporator said, "I will take up this issue with the revenue minister and request a more vigilant approach by the collector (revenue department) in clearing such proposals by the BMC administration." On the other hand, when mid-day questioned Alpesh Ajmera, who also serves as a director of Nishalp Realties, he said, "No comments". BMC chief Chahal did not respond to mid-day's calls and messages till the time of going to press.
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