Mumbai: Residents of one building in Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls have exposed the fraudulent method adopted by Public Works Department (PWD) officials, who made fake rent receipts for defunct common washing rooms as ‘chawl rooms’ at Naigaon. They posed as owners of these residential rooms. These nine PWD officers are rent collectors of BDD chawls, old residential quarters located at Worli, N M Joshi and Dadar Naigaon. Since they collect the rent they have full access to the minute details of the entire layout of these chawls.
They are aware of which rooms are unused, like in this case the washing rooms in 7B building which they conspired to convert into residential houses. The PWD officers had to provide the rent register details to Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), the agency responsible for the redevelopment project. MHADA officials are collecting all information and lay out of the entire project to corroborate the owners of premises in all the BDD chawls. After receiving the rent receipts of 7B nine common washing rooms, the details were uploaded by MHADA on their website. One resident saw these rent receipts and took the print outs to expose the fraudulent PWD officials. He further shared this information with the neighbours in 7B building who have demanded the nine fraudulent officers be arrested. The residents to Kalidas Kolambkar, a Congress legislator from Naigaon constituency showed how these defunct washing rooms were used as reading rooms and for gymnasium by the residents. Moreover, the occupancy for these rooms have not been transferred in the name of any person. “It is a brazen fraud by corrupt officials who have taken undue advantage of their position. They have studied the rent receipts and the entire layout to get rooms in their names. We want MHADA and the government to cancel their false ownership and they should be jailed,” demanded the residents.
Kolambkar met the BDD Chawl director Janbandhu and MHADA Mumbai chairman Madhu Chavan with the written complaint by the residents urging them to take strict action against the fraudulent officers. “I will be meeting the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and bring this fraud to his notice. I want him to take strict action against these nine officials,” said Kolambkar. The nine PWD officers have been identified as S B Ahire, Nalavade, Y M Pinjari, R D Dhanvijay, M Dhaneswar, N D Ghode, A A Desai, A N Mane, S Sonwane. Already one investigation has been ordered by Fadnavis by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB), for 3000 illegal transfers. There are 42 chawls with 80 tenants residing in each building at Naigaon. The deputy collector is yet to start the scrutiny of eligible tenants for the redevelopment project.
