BMC chief: Public wealth destroyed due to individual activism

Speaking about the resources spent by government bodies to fight litigations against infrastructure projects, municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi on Thursday

Speaking about the resources spent by government bodies to fight litigations against infrastructure projects, municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi on Thursday said that public wealth has been “actively constrained and literally destroyed”.

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He was speaking at a conference named ‘Climate Crisis: Action for Tropical Coastal Cities’, hosted by think tank Mumbai First, in collaboration with the European Union and CSIR-NEERI, supported by the state government and Union environment ministry.

“Public wealth, which is the ability of the goverment to create good infrastructure, not only didn’t increase but has been actively constrained and literally destroyed due to individual private activism,” he said.

Pardeshi spoke about litigations filed in courts against infrastructure projects in which money is spent to fight them. “Public transport projects, which require a lot of collective action by state and corporation, are blocked at every point, not for the want of funds but by too much discussion and too public interest litigation which leads to it going back and forth,” he said.

Pardeshi’s comments did not go well with activists. Terming the statements as “shameless”, Zoru Bathena, who petitioned the court against the car shed project at Aarey, said, “We are fighting the wrong committed by the authorities to save money spent on big-ticket projects. Why do they not consider the voice of the public or of those who make valid points?” he said.