<strong><span style="font-size: 12pt">Over 10,000 hectares of govt land in and around city taken over by politicians, bureaucrats to build farmhouses, 5-star hotels: Economist</span></strong><br />u00a0<br />  <table style="width: 106px; height: 42px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="106" align="right" border="1">  <tbody>  <tr>  <td><img alt="" src="/imagedata/2011/feb/suniti.jpg" border="0" /></td></tr>  <tr>  <td>  <p align="center"><span style="font-size: 8pt">Suniti S R, National Convenor, National Alliance for People's Movements, said that land-grabbing was rampant in Pimpri-Chinchwad</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table>Of the total 30,000 hectares of the government-owned land in and around the city, more than a third has been grabbed by politicians in the last 40 years, a veteran economist has claimed.u00a0These include cantonment, municipal, defence, agriculture, forest and hill lands in and around the city. Veteran economist Prof HM Desarda said politicians had used such 'benami property' (see box) to construct farmhouses, five-star hotels and skyscrapers with the help of the builder lobby. "Lavasa city in Pune district is just the tip of the iceberg," Desarda said. <br /><br />He said the process of getting Non-Agricultural Land Certificate for farms had become easy when Sharad Pawar was the chief minister of the state. Earlier, land owners were not allowed to use agricultural land in the state for any non-agricultural venture. <br /><br />To stop the political land mafias in the city and the state, Desarda has urged Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan to make a thorough study of the trend by appointing a fact-finding committee with experts and prepare a report in the next six months.u00a0u00a0u00a0 <br /><br />S R Suniti, National Convener of People's Movement, said she agreed with Desarda's observations about the land scenario in the city.u00a0 The land-grabbing game is also rampant in Pimpri-Chinchwad area where a thorough investigation of the illegal land deals is urgently required, she said. "It's the duty of the Opposition to point out irregularities in the land deals to the government. However, there is no political will to work on this issue," Suniti said. <br /><br />V S Nulkar, trustee of Devdeveshwar Sansthan at Parvati Hill, said the entire Parvati hill land was owned by local politicians and the moneyed class. "The slums on the hills near the Parvati Water Works have been the vote banks of these leaders for the last four decades," Nulkar said. 

Over 10,000 hectares of govt land in and around city taken over by politicians, bureaucrats to build farmhouses, 5-star hotels: Economist

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