Pre-poll windfall for MHADA: MLAs clear dues for clean affidavits

Vishnu Savra, a BJP MLA whom Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has inducted in his lean cabinet of ministers, incidentally had the highest amount of interest outstanding.

“We have been trying to recover Rs 6 crore in the form of interest on late payments from these MLAs for the past few years, but haven’t been able to. Just prior to elections, we collected nearly Rs 1 crore in August and September before the date for filing nominations to contest elections. They would have otherwise had to disclose the dues in affidavits,” said a MHADA official requesting anonymity.

Candidates wanting to contest elections have to declare any outstanding liabilities overall and towards the government in their affidavits other than details such as their total assets, education, occupation, criminal record and so on.

The Rajyog Cooperative Housing Society comprises 225 apartments in high-rises in Versova that MHADA had kept aside to form a housing society for legislators. The 900-square-foot apartments were sold to legislators in 2009 and 2010 at a heavily discounted rate of Rs 42 lakh each.

According to data from the MHADA accounts department, Savra had taken possession of his house in Rajyog on July 2010. However, his actual bank loan amount was deposited with MHADA only in April 2012 even as the last date for full payment was November 17, 2009. As a result, Savra was due to pay an interest of Rs 9.92 lakh for the delay.

“It was important to pay that amount so as to ensure that there is no problem later. So we cleared it before the polls. Most of us had not paid this amount earlier because we were given an idea by the leaders of the society that the interest on delayed payment could be waived off,” Savra said.

Congress’s Charan Singh Sapra, who cleared an amount of Rs 1.81 lakh for 154 days of delay as per MHADA’s records, said he did not intend to default on the payment and the delay was due to a communication gap.

“I had to pay interest for delay for just about four to five months and that too because I did not get MHADA’s intimation about it on time. When I got to know, I immediately cleared the dues. It is surely better from the point of view of the affidavit we have to file for elections, but in any case, I had to pay the amount, so I cleared it,” said Sapra, who lost the Assembly election to BJP’s Sardar Tara Singh in Mulund.

Besides the interest on delayed payments from MLAs who have been given possession of their houses, MHADA is also struggling to recover the total amounts for about 25 flats. This is because several legislators backed out after initially evincing interest in acquiring the flats after a controversy over the allotments highlighted that many already owned houses in the city.

manasi.phadke@expressindia.com