Mumbai, Mar 19: Maharashtra chief minister Manohar Joshi on Thursday denied graft charges levelled by the opposition against him and his government. Terming them as politically motivated, Joshi said he was prepared for aopen debate on the issue.He was replying to a debate on the governor address. Joshi's denial came in the wake of allegations of corruption made on Wednesday by Congress MLA RR Patil.Patil had alleged that Joshi's son was involved in land deals in Dadar, the chief minister's home constituency. He had also alleged of large scale irregularities and subsequent cover up operations in the handing over of a Rs 250-crore plot in a prime area to a private developer. The plot is owned by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority.
The chief minister said his government was committed to devote the remaining two years in implementing various schemes and programmes announced by it.
The government had launched 60 schemes encompassing all its promises given in the alliance's `vachan-nama'for the 1995 assembly polls, he added.
Joshi said nobody had found fault with any of the schemes and programmes launched by the government. However, there had been criticism over their implementation which, he conceded, needed to be improved.
Citing examples of the government's ambitious free-housing scheme for 40 lakh slum dwellers in the metropolis, Joshi said the scheme, formally launched in October 1995, got entangled in litigation thanks to an ill-founded initiative taken by a member of legislative council.
Joshi acknowledged that the government could not complete the scheme within the declared time due to massive downward slide in land price and unavailability of funds.
He took the opposition to task for questioning the alliance government on its promises to farmers and for rural areas and countered them by asking what the Congress had done for these two segments in 45 years of its rule. Without naming former chief minister Sharad Pawar, Joshi said 29 ministers visited Israel but broughtnothing for the state, whereas the Sena-BJP government collaborated with Israel to set up a cotton-demonstration farm at Akola to increase the yield.
The previous government never attempted to announce its agriculture policy in 45 years of rule as its leaders were "hand in glove with big and rich farmers and never bothered about small and marginal farmers," he alleged. The state government had already announced the agriculture policy for the benefit of neglected sections, he said.
Questioning the opposition's right to criticise the government for providing compensation of Rs 50 to hail-storm hit farmers and Rs 1000 per acre to mango growers, Joshi said in similar situations, the previous Congress government gave only Rs 5 to 8 to hail-storm hit farmers and Rs 100 per acre to mango cultivators.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
