The Maharashtra irrigation scam may not become a political issue because it has embarrassed the treasury benches as much as the opposition. While deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party has resigned, Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari has been accused of hampering the probe because of his “business relations” with NCP leaders. Gadkari has denied the accusation and sent a legal notice to Anjali Damania, 42, an activist of India Against Corruption, who has exposed the Rs 72,000-crore scam that is said to have taken place between 1999 and 2009.
It was in May last year that Damania, who owns 30 acres of land in Raigad district, began to probe the irrigation sector after she received a notice from the government saying that it was acquiring her land for the Kondhane irrigation project. She, along with IAC activist Mayank Gandhi, relentlessly dug out details of the project under the Right to Information Act. The two stumbled upon several irregularities such as a flawed tendering process and the absence of mandatory clearances from the forest department. More important, the project did not have the approval of the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority and the Archaeological Survey of India (it was situated adjacent to the Kondhane caves).
As Damania came up with more and more evidence of irregularities, the water resources minister, Sunil Tatkare (who took over the portfolio from Pawar after the 2009 assembly elections), came under fire for the manner in which the contracts for Kondhane and other irrigation projects had been handed out. Tatkare tried his best to say there was no wrongdoing. But by then Governor K Sankaranarayanan had ordered an enquiry into the Kondhane project based on Damania’s findings. Tatkare, in particular, and, NCP in general, suffered a major embarrassment when the contract for the Kondhane project was scrapped after an inquiry by water resources secretary E B Patil on Sankaranarayanan’s directive. The project’s cost had shot up from Rs 80.35 crore to Rs 435 crore after the height of the dam was increased from 39 meters to 71 meters without any assessment.
Damania pursued her lonely drive despite the reluctance of authorities to help and, at times, strong opposition, especially from politicians. Undeterred by threats on phone, Damania plans to go ahead with her fight till the guilty go behind bars. She also wants to acquire documents about the 70 dams being proposed by the Konkan Irrigation Development Corporation.
While NCP has not targetted Damania personally, Gadkari has denied ever meeting Damania. In the legal notice, Gadkari’s counsel has asked Damania to publicly apologise or face action. Strange as it may sound, Damania’s father was an activist of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and she was even helped by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya in her efforts to expose the scam. Damania has alleged that Gadkari stopped Somaiya from filing a court case. She has demanded an independent enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the irrigation scam.
Setting aside the controversy, Damania’s efforts are also bearing fruit. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had announced that his government would bring out a white paper on the issue given the Economic Survey’s finding that though Rs 70,000 crore had been spent on irrigation projects in the state in the last decade, the state’s irrigation potential had only gone up by 0.1 per cent. The truth, hopefully, will soon be known.