VCA pays higher amount, gets sanctions for Jamtha stadium

Nagpur: The Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority (NMRDA) has regularized Vidarbha Cricket Association’s (VCA) Jamtha International Cricket Stadium and Club House. This comes after the stadium has hosted 33 internationals and a number of national and local matches for 11 years without sanctions in place. It has had to shell out extra money for this.
On January 6, 2016, TOI had reported that the stadium and club house were unauthorized as they did not have layout and building plan sanction. However, Prakash Dixit and Shashank Manohar, the then VCA and BCCI president respectively, had claimed that all permissions were in place.
NMRDA officials told TOI that the VCA had to pay Rs8.13 crore for final approvals. “Rs1.58 crore was for regularization of layout and Rs6.55 crore for building plan. VCA deposited the amount and approvals were given on September 9. It is the highest-ever charges from a single case in the history of metro region,” they said.
The amount is Rs2.5 core more than what any applicant would have had to pay today for a similar project. The VCA had to cough up more for bringing the property into use without having the sanctions in place. The next international match scheduled at Jamtha stadium is a T20 tie between India and Bangladesh on November 10.
TOI, on October 7, 2013, had also reported that the stadium and club house lacked fire NOC and compliance certificate. VCA then had installed fire safety systems at the cost of over Rs4 crore and obtained fire compliance certificate from the Maharashtra Fire Services on October 10, 2015.
According to NMRDA officials, VCA the applied for occupancy certificate for the stadium and club house on March 20, 2018. The NMRDA sought clarity on approvals from the collector. On seeking legal opinion, the advocate general said no environment clearance was applicable to the stadium and club house.
The NMRDA then asked VCA to apply for approvals. “The process to verify and granting occupancy certificate is going on,” the officials said.
When TOI called up current VCA president Anand Jaiswal to ask why VCA decided to pay the higher amount, he said, “I will not talk to TOI.”
RTI activist Kamlesh Shah, TH Naidu, Ankita Shah and NGO Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’s Prashant Pawar had obtained many documents related to VCA stadium and club house under RTI Act and to bring out the violations.
Naidu made repeated pleas to state information commission (SIC) for over two years seeking VCA’s sanctioned plans from collector under RTI Act. The collector in an affidavit on June 20, 2018 said it had not cleared the stadium and club house building plan.
The collector was the sanctioning authority for Jamtha area till 2010. It was later replaced by the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT). Since, March 2017, the NMRDA is the authority.
Pawar, Ankita and Naidu have demanded action against all officials of collector’s office, police, NIT, fire department and NMRDA for allowing matches in the stadium and usage of club house for 11 years. “Permissions were also given for last three years despite our complaints. Police did not register any offence. For similar violations, officials of New Delhi and Chennai are not allowing usage of a part of the cricket stadium there,” they said.