The President of India’s life could be in danger.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: India has now the dubious distinction of having repeated déjà vu when it comes to scams: but a new land scam that has surfaced in the heart of the national capital is bound to appall even the most hardened and laid back citizens who have seen numerous mother-after-mother of all scams.
From 1992 onwards there had been a blitz of such incidents, starting with the corporate crimes of stock broker Harshad Mehta. It’s the turn now of an alleged scam that involves the construction company DLF and Rashtrapati Bhavan, where the President of India lives.
It’s also being termed as one of the biggest rackets involving the government, the details of which were beamed on the TV channel Times Now, on Monday.
Media reports here say the value of the alleged scam amounts to a whopping Rs. 3.5 lakh crore, eclipsing the earlier Coal Scam (Rs 1.86 lakh crore) the 2G scam (Rs 1.76 lakh crore).
At the core of the scheme are some as yet unnamed officials from the Urban Development Ministry approving DLF, the country’s biggest builder, to construct a high-rise luxury apartment building within a radius of a kilometer from the President’s House or the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
This many say is a sheer flaunting of security concerns, endangering the President of India as he could be a sitting duck for a sniper atop the newly constructed building aiming at the sprawling colonial era residence.
The British intelligence agency MI5 had stated that “Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba has operatives to launch para gliders and hang gliders on high value targets” here. MI5 also warned that the proposed building could be “used as a platform to launch aerial attack”.
But caution was thrown to the winds when this deal got approval in December last year, despite it being flagged down by the Intelligence Bureau and the President’s Office.
“It is a clear case of corruption. The government has to come clean on this issue,” said BJP spokesmen Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
In 2011, the Delhi High Court denied permission for the DLF arm – Edward Keventer Successors Pvt. Ltd. (EKSPL) – from building this luxury complex near the President’s house and had clearly stated that “DLF cannot develop private flats near Rashtrapati Bhavan.”
Then the central government said that the construction would compromise the “security and aesthetic(s)” of the area.
EKSPL holds the 29.95 acres of the property under a perpetual lease deed since 1942 in the form of dairy land. The current value of the land is pegged at Rs 400 crore an acre.
DLF, however, has a different take on this alleged scam. The builder says that the concern is ‘’imaginary’’ and that there are many multi-story structures around the vicinity of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, like the eight-story building coming up near Talkatora Stadium for Members of Parliament. There is also the Ashoka hotel and Hotel Samrat, of similar height, which overlooks the official residence of the Prime Minister. The builder has pointed out that then in that case security norms need to be applied uniformly and not selectively.
The CBI is now investigating the project.
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