Maha Lokayukta to hear alleged ₹263-cr street furniture contract scam

The Maharashtra Lokayukta has scheduled a hearing in February 2024 on a complaint by Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray regarding an alleged street furniture contract scam in the BMC worth ₹263 crore. Thackeray has raised concerns about the misuse of funds and has demanded action from the authorities. He also plans to raise the issue of variation in road tender amounts before the Lokayukta. Thackeray has accused the chief minister of making false allegations against him to tarnish his image.

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Lokayukta has taken cognizance of a complaint by Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on an alleged ₹263-crore street furniture contract scam in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and scheduled a hearing in February 2024.

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Thackeray had alleged in March 2023 that the scam was suggestive of the way Mumbai was being looted by Ahmedabad and Surat, at the behest of the union government. He had dashed off several letters to BMC commissioner I S Chahal at the time. A month later, he sought a report of BMC’s three-member committee, which finalised 13 street furniture items and locations for installing them.

“Despite raising my voice on the scam, there has been no action. I wrote to Maharashtra Lokayukta two weeks ago and also furnished relevant documents. I received a letter today from their office about the hearing in February,” said Thackeray, who will be present for the hearing. Chahal and principal secretary of the urban development department have also been summoned, and Thackeray has expressed hope that the civic commissioner will attend the hearing in-person.

Of the entire corpus, Thackeray has questioned the ₹22-crore given to contractors. “What happened to that money,” he asked.

He said, in the near future he will also raise the issue of variation in road tender amount before the Lokayukta. Additionally, he has demanded that various infrastructure projects which have been completed be opened for public. “Digha railway station on the trans-harbour railway line has been ready for eight months; likewise the Dombivli-Mankoli connector and Uran railway. But the chief minister who belongs to the same Thane district has no time to inaugurate and is turning a blind eye to people’s suffering,” he said.

Reacting to the chief minister’s claims in the assembly that various BMC contracts were given to friends of Aaditya Thackeray, he said, “I am a 33-year-old MLA and still CM Shinde is scared of me and that’s why he made those allegations to malign my image. He is reading BJP’s script. BJP also knows his limitations and hands him the same script again and again.”