Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav allegedly allowed three of his close friends to splurge on the State Exchequer money during his regime. The most glaring among these being him giving away a Rs 1,200 crore seven-star rated state government owned building to one of his builder friend Arun Agarwal, on a 15-year lease for a paltry annual rent of Rs 3.15 crore only, even before the construction was over.
“Once completed and functional, Jai Prakash Narain International Centre (JPNIC) will earn no less than Rs 20 lakh to Rs 50 lakh a day. How can he be allowed to be the owner of a state government building for 15 years,” says a senior LDA officer requesting anonymity.
Akhilesh also gave the contract for the architectural designing to his another childhood friend Sourabh Gupta’s company Archohm. To make his friends mint money at the cost of the state exchequer, designs were deliberately changed on whims and fancies in the last three years to take the project cost up to a whopping 864 crores from Rs 167 crore.
The Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) was the nodal agency for monitoring the project. The Adityanath government has already ordered a probe into the JPNIC scam and directed LDA Vice-Chairman Satyendra Singh Yadav to investigate into the financial and other irregularities and submit a report.
“I am not satisfied by the designing and construction works and would recommend blacklisting of these two companies (Archohm and M/S Shalimar) in my report to the Chief Minister (Yogi Adityanath),” said the LDA VC.
So far about Rs 610 crore have been spent on the construction of JPNIC and only 70-75 per cent work is complete while the deadline to complete the work was March 31, 2017. Rs 100 crore released by the previous regime are now lying in NPA account of the LDA.
“Action should be initiated against LDA officials for not monitoring these projects,” a retired IAS officer Surya Pratap Singh told DNA.
