NTC Scam: Rs 1700 crore lost, rabbit hole could be Rs 20000 crore deep

By NewsGram Staff Writer

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed an FIR against the former chairman of National Textiles Corporation (NTC), Ramachandran Pillai, and former Union Cabinet Minister for Textiles Shankar Singh Vaghela and five others in relation to a land deal made by NTC members to a private company at a throwaway price.

The company sold a prime land belonging to a pre-independence era mill, Madhusudhan Mills in Mumbai to a private player, which costed the NTC a loss amounting to Rs. 1,700 crores.

The private company, Gowani builders was allegedly allowed to develop 27,500 square meters of the 80,785 sqm plot, which belonged to Madhusudan Mills.

Reports of collective conspiracy on the parts of Vaghela, Pillai and the owner of Madhusudan Mills made the agency file a preliminary enquiry (PE) in 2014. Another report suggests that this land deal scam of Madhusudhan Mills could be as big as worth Rs. 20,000 crores.

After an year long preliminary inquiry into the matter and raids conducted at nine locations across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Gandhinagar, also including the residences of Vaghela and Pillai, the CBI filed an FIR on Wednesday.

Several incriminating evidences relating to the illegal land deals done by the NTC during the rule of UPA government have been recovered by the CBI, according to a report.

Another report states that the scam also involves the 2004 sale of a piece of land worth Rs. 400 crores, located at Parel in Mumbai and belonging to NTC to a private printing press at just Rs. 17.5 crores and that too, without recovering the accumulated lease rent of Rs 90 crores and becoming overdue for nonpayment for years.