[The
building, which remains empty awaiting the resolution of a legal case now at
the Indian Supreme Court, is just one of scores of tainted real estate projects
that analysts say have exposed a deep-rooted culture of corruption here in
India’s financial capital. In recent years, when construction was booming along
with the Indian economy, Mumbai, the nation’s most densely populated city, may
have lost potential revenue of as much as 200 billion rupees, or $3.6 billion,
a year because of such violations, said Subodh Kumar, Mumbai’s former city commissioner,
the Indian equivalent of an American city manager. ]
By Vikas Bajaj
 |
|
Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
Efforts by the chief minister of India's financial capital
to curb corruption
has offered hope to residents in Mumbai.
|
MUMBAI,
India — The units in an apartment building being built in the upscale Mumbai
neighborhood of Juhu promised to be both dazzling and odd: Each of the 33 homes
in the 11-story building would come with a private lily pond, a car elevator
and parking spaces for three cars next to the living room.
City
officials and neighborhood residents say the parking spaces were a clever sham
dreamed up by a developer and corrupt bureaucrats to skirt building rules and
avoid paying millions of dollars in fees. The rooms for “parking,” which the
developer did not have to account for because they were not considered living
spaces, were sold to buyers as a way to add dining areas, extra rooms or
whatever else they wanted.
The
building, which remains empty awaiting the resolution of a legal case now at
the Indian Supreme Court, is just one of scores of tainted real estate projects
that analysts say have exposed a deep-rooted culture of corruption here in
India’s financial capital. In recent years, when construction was booming along
with the Indian economy, Mumbai, the nation’s most densely populated city, may
have lost potential revenue of as much as 200 billion rupees, or $3.6 billion,
a year because of such violations, said Subodh Kumar, Mumbai’s former city
commissioner, the Indian equivalent of an American city manager.
“One
thousand square feet became 2,000 or 3,000 depending on how well you could work
the system,” said Mr. Kumar, who retired this year. “There was a huge industry
of corruption.”
The
payoffs and kickbacks would probably have continued for years to come, Mr.
Kumar and others say, had it not been for a new chief minister of the state of
Maharashtra, of which Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is the capital. This year the
minister, Prithviraj Chavan, an appointed official, approved an overhaul of the
city’s building permit system to make it more transparent. He stripped
officials of the power to grant exemptions to favored builders and forced
developers to pay fees for additions like balconies and parking spaces next to
apartments.
Partly
as a result, even as several big-ticket corruption scandals have deeply shaken
public confidence in public officials elsewhere in India, many Mumbai residents
and corporate executives say they have regained some hope for their city of 14
million, which many of them had despaired was becoming more dysfunctional by
the day.
He
“is one of the finest chief ministers we have had,” said Ashoke Pandit, a
filmmaker whose neighborhood association flagged problems in numerous real
estate projects, including the Juhu building. “He is a very honest,
straightforward person. He has put a stop to all the nonsense and wrongs that
have happened.”
Supporters
say that Mr. Chavan, 66, and a handful of other reform-minded chief ministers
in states like Bihar and Orissa offer one of the few hopeful signs during a
particularly dark moment for India. In the last two years, the economy has
slowed sharply, corruption scandals have mushroomed and many government
agencies have proved incapable of carrying out basic functions.
These
regional leaders, the Indian equivalent of the governor of an American state,
face plenty of critics, and their success is far from guaranteed. Political
rivals and real estate developers, for example, say that Mr. Chavan’s focus on
eliminating corruption has come at the expense of greasing the wheels that
allow for long-needed improvements.
Still,
Mr. Chavan and the other chief ministers have been far more productive than the
Parliament in New Delhi, which has been repeatedly paralyzed by recent scandals
and political squabbles.
In
Mumbai, the change in building rules is bringing in millions of dollar in extra
revenue, officials say. That has helped put resources behind Mr. Chavan’s push
for big public works projects like a 13-mile bridge that would offer another
connection to this island city, across a wide bay to the mainland, opening up
vast new tracts of land for housing and commercial development.
That
project had been delayed numerous times since it was first conceived in the
1960s. But now a contract is expected to be awarded early next year and
construction could start by the end of 2013.
“For
obvious reasons, Mumbai is really challenged; it’s really bursting at the
seams,” Mr. Chavan said during an interview at his home office one recent
Saturday evening. “I think it’s possible to reinvent Mumbai — and we will do
that.”
Deepak
Parekh, chairman of HDFC, India’s biggest mortgage lender, and one of Mumbai’s
most respected business leaders, said that Mr. Chavan has reset expectations in
the city by sending a strong signal that pervasive corruption would no longer
be tolerated.
Two
years ago when he took over, he invited the city’s biggest developers to a
meeting and gave them a blunt warning.
“I
don’t want to meet any builders alone,” Mr. Parekh recalled him saying. “Don’t
try to meet me or my chief secretary or my municipal commissioner.”
Mr.
Chavan was able to take a hard line, analysts say, because of the backlash
against his predecessor, Ashok Chavan, who is not related and was forced out
after a real estate scandal. That case involved the sale of a prime plot of
government land at a low rate to a group of former army officers who built a
luxurious condominium tower for themselves and the families of select
government officials. Ashok Chavan has denied any wrongdoing.
At
the time, Prithviraj Chavan, an aerospace engineer who studied at the
University of California, Berkeley, was a national minister in charge of
science policy. The Indian National Congress Party, which governs both the
federal and the Maharashtra governments, chose him principally because he had a
reputation for honesty, even though he had no experience running a large state.
But
what made him an appealing candidate, his technocratic credentials and honesty,
are also a source of concern. Even his supporters worry that Mr. Chavan will
not survive the hurly-burly of Maharashtra and Mumbai politics, where the
Congress Party has an uneasy relationship with its main political ally, the
Nationalist Congress Party.
Though
he was born in Maharashtra, now home to more than 112 million people, and is
the son of two leading politicians — important qualities in the dynastic
politics of India — Mr. Chavan has spent most of his career in New Delhi. Because
he was appointed to run the state, it makes him vulnerable to the criticism
that he is a carpetbagger.
His
political weakness has already forced Mr. Chavan to defer decisions on some big
projects like a coastal freeway to ease congestion, according to a confidant
who asked not to be identified because he did not want to lose his access to
the minister.
Opposition
lawmakers and even some of his allies have attacked him for being a puppet of
the Gandhi family, which controls the Congress Party. Many complain that while
he may be cleaning up corruption, he is too cautious and makes decisions very
slowly. The new building rules, for instance, took a year and a half to enact.
“Corruption-free
work doesn’t mean no work at all,” Uddhav Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv
Sena, an opposition political party that holds the most seats on Mumbai’s City
Council, said in an e-mail interview this year. “We have seen no bold decision
on the government’s part after he took over, and no one is happy, neither the
hardworking entrepreneurs nor the common man.”
Mr.
Chavan readily acknowledged that he does not have a strong political following
in the state, and he described his first early days in office as “a baptism by
fire.”
But
he said his efforts to improve Mumbai and fight corruption would prove his
critics wrong and win him a mandate when the state holds an election in 2014.
“Clearances
got slowed down a little because we had to change the rules,” he said. “But I
think things are happening at a very, very fast pace now.”
His
admirers say they would like him to stay, but know that he could be yanked back
to New Delhi at any time. In the meantime they are hoping he leaves his imprint
on the city by helping usher in a new long-term plan for its development.
“We
need to take full advantage of his tenure,” said P. K. Das, a prominent
architect in the city, “as long as he is chief minister.”
Neha
Thirani contributed reporting.