The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : Windsor Palace wall demolished

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Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008
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Windsor Palace wall demolished

Correspondent

CUTTACK: The Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) officials on Monday demolished the boundary wall of the controversial Markat Nagar Kalyan Mandap which was popularly known as ‘Windsor Palace’.

The palatial Kalyan Mandap built at a cost of around Rs. 4 crores jointly by CDA and Cuttack Gymkhana Private Limited owned by former urban development minister Samir Dey’s brother-in-law entered into a controversy as it encroached the adjacent government land.

The mandap, which came up on around 50,000 square feet of area in 2003, had encroached around 15,000 square feet of government land. Besides, as per the agreement under Built-Operate-Transfer (BOT), the Cuttack Gymkhana also violated the terms and conditions by not paying the requisite annual license fee to CDA.

CDA officials, however, were not able to take any action against the gymkhana as it was run by Debabrata Dattaray who for his relationship with the city BJP legislator Dey who as the urban development minister was the president of CDA. The CDA, however, swung into action when the urban development ministry came under K.V. Singh Deo.

A show-cause notice was issued to the gymkhana when Singhdeo came to know about the irregularities. When repeated notices did not yield any result, CDA was forced to cancel the agreement signed with gymkhana in November this year.

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