By: Savio Rodrigues
1st of the series of investigation
The on-going investigations by CBI into the various business enterprises and real estate assets of 2G Scam accused Shahid Balwa of DB Realty is to now bring the controversial project into the eye of the storm and it is to also raise serious questions on the role of Goa Government on the reasons behind the clearance of the project even though it appears to be in violations of Central and State laws.
Patricia Pinto, General Secretary, People’s Movement of Civic Action (PCMA) had applied on August 21, 2007 to the Assistant Public Information Officer of the Town & Country Planning (TCP)Department under the Right to Information Act for inspection of the file containing TCP approvals, plans and No Objection Certificates (NOC) in respect of the construction project coming up at the site in Bambolim, which is the subject matter of a petition filed by PMCA and Goa Foundation against Goa Real Estate and Construction Limited (GRECL) which is a part of the DB Realty.
However, Pinto was denied access to the information by a letter dated September 18, 2004, (much after the statutory period under the RTI Act) and was informed that the file could not be traced.
Even the effort to get some crucial documents from the Secretary of the Village Panchayat of Curca/ Bambolim under RTI Act didn’t materialize. On October 16, 2007, the petitioner under RTI requested for crucial documents listed so that the file that was told to be not traceable since it was sent to the Block Development Officer’s office in 2003, could be traced. However, on November 14, 2007, she received a formal letter from the Panchayat stating that neither the memorandum for the BDO’s office nor the Panchayat letter sending the file to the BDO’s office can be traced.
Since the controversy surrounding the Shahid Balwa 2G Scam episode broke out; the management of Aldeia de Goa have tried to stay away from the links to DB Realty and even released an advertisement in the local newspapers; the fact remains that hoardings across Goa promoted the ‘Aldeia de Goa’ project as a DB Realty project; Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa of DB Realty are also stakeholders in GRECL.
