New Delhi: Within hours of his death in an air crash Wednesday morning, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s name was doing the rounds on social media, with his detractors discussing his involvement in the Maharashtra Irrigation Scam. He was an accused in a Rs 70,000-crore irrigation scam. But in 2019, he was given a clean chit while politics in Maharashtra was witnessing a period of shifting political alliances.
Ajit and four others were on their way to Pune’s Baramati, a Pawar family bastion, when their plane crashed, killing all on board.
The opposition frequently raised Ajit’s involvement in the irrigation scam, and it did not leave him in the just-concluded Zilla Parishad Panchayat Samiti elections.
Ajit’s ‘involvement’ in the scam
Ajit, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, was at the centre of the Maharashtra Irrigation Scam. Between 1999 and 2009, successive governments spent thousands of crores on irrigation projects meant to expand cultivable land and improve farmers’ access to water. However, in 2012, a former bureaucrat in Maharashtra, Vijay Pandhare, wrote a detailed letter to the then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and a top official, exposing irregularities in irrigation projects.
He claimed that nearly Rs 35,000 crore has been wasted in various schemes, and 99 per cent of lift irrigation projects in the state were non-functional. He also alleged the projects never delivered water.
Ajit, who was the Water Resources Minister and chairman of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation, was looking after the approval of several large irrigation projects.
A special investigation team was appointed under the chairpersonship of Madhavrao Chitale, an internationally acclaimed expert on water management, to investigate the cost overruns. Chavan ordered an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) inquiry into the matter.
The special investigation team unearthed that their norms were diluted, tenders were fast-tracked, and project costs increased with no work on the ground. However, the ACB report argued that this benefited a small group of contractors, burdening the state fund.
The irrigation scam emerged as one of the most controversial corruption scandals. It raised serious questions about the state’s governance and accountability in a water-starved state.
Ajit denied any wrongdoing. He was not named in any FIRs.
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White paper and clean chit
After months of reports and charges, the state government came up with a White Paper, a finding report, which gave Ajit a clean chit. The report also justified the expenses incurred over the past ten years. During this time, Ajit has resigned from his position.
According to the reports, there had been a 28 per cent growth in irrigated land. There had been a rise in the ratio of irrigated land in 2010 compared to 2000, it added.
The White Paper report cited that the Central Water Commission and the Planning Commission approved cost escalation in all the projects. It also claimed that the state had witnessed an increase of 70 thousand million cubic meters of water, which is provided to cities and the industrial sector.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)