Government refuses to divulge details regarding shifting of Chief Minister’s Office
19 Jan, 2014A fire broke out on June 21, 2012 in the Mantralaya building of Maharashtra government due to an electrical short circuit causing hundreds of files to be destroyed. Again, there was a fire on the fourth floor of the building on March 9, 2013 following which the Mantralaya decided to go for repair and renovation of the building.
In this regard, an application was filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details of the renovation including the cost of temporarily shifting the offices of the chief minister, deputy chief minister and the chief secretary from the sixth to first floor of the building and then back to their previous positions.
The reply to the application stated that the Unity Infraprojects Limited was given the contract of renovating the building. In the first phase, repair and renovation of those floors will take place that were damaged in 2012 fire and in the second phase the remaining floors will be repaired. The reply showed the breakup of Rs. 94 crore disbursed till now. Around Rs. 71 crore was paid to Unity Infraprojects and Rs. 13.7 crore was paid to the executive engineer, South Mumbai, electrical department. The reply stated that an amount of around Rs. 5 crore was paid to Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd. while Rs. 4.04 crore was paid as consultancy fee to Raja Aederi Consultants Pvt Ltd. However, the information regarding the cost involved in the shifting of the offices was denied citing security reasons.