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Congress alleges irregularities in Gajapati Plaza project

BERHAMPUR: The city unit of the Congress has alleged serious irregularities in the Gajapati Plaza project of the Berhampur Development Authority (BDA).

The party has written to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik with the demand that he intervene and cancel the handing over of the Gajapati Plaza project to the Kolkata-based Forum Mart. President of the city unit of the Congress Sanjit Kumar Panigrahy said if the State Government failed to take any action in the matter the Congress would take it up as a major issue to harness its support base before the coming municipality polls.

The BDA had acquired five acres of land near Giri Market from the State Government on a lease for 99 years. It was to construct a shopping complex for urban and semi-urban entrepreneurs on the spot under a project named Gajapati Plaza. In 2003 the BDA had come up with a notification about this project and 170 persons had applied for shops in the shopping complex. They had also deposited Rs 10,000 to book shops.

But in 2007 the BDA decided to hand over the land for Gajapati Plaza under it to Forum Mart for Rs. 9.35 crores shelving down its own project and the fate of the people who had hoped to have shops in the BDA establishment. “We suspect a kick-back did the trick as the BDA authorities could have at least opted for private-public partnership rather than handing over the whole project to the private company,” Mr Panigrahy said. He demanded initiation of investigation into the whole deal as he smelt some thing fishy in it. But the chairperson of the BDA, Sarat Ranjan Patnaik refuted the charges made by the Congress and said the deal with the Forum Mark was fair and open.

The city Congress has also alleged that the BDA is not calling for public opinion before its special meetings to discuss future developmental plans about the city which is a right of the citizens of the city. Calling for public opinion was a great need as the city has not had a new master plan since 1969, it said.

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