Local real estate companies in Navi Mumbai who propose to lease Nagaland House in Mumbai are also behind a similar deal with a neighbouring North East state
Morung Express News
Kohima | October 3
In what seems to be a common tool used by the real estate industry in Navi Mumbai, a private real estate firm, Zacharia Industries, has approached Nagaland State Government with the proposal to ‘manage, maintain and develop’ Nagaland House in Navi Mumbai.
But what is Zacharia Industries Pvt. Ltd.?
This question led The Morung Express to run an investigation into the company to supplement its third in a four-part series on Nagaland House in Navi Mumbai. An uncanny issue unfurled that brought the first victim of a similar deal to attention. Arunachal Pradesh.
In the 1990s, when Navi Mumbai was beginning to be developed, the City Industrial and Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) had allotted several plots at concessional rates to 17 states for guest houses. Vashi’s Sector 30A in Navi Mumbai, where Nagaland House is located, houses Meghalaya House and Assam Bhawan, among others. Between 1994 and 1997, Arunachal Pradesh also acquired a plot reportedly measuring 2500 sq mts in the same area.
However, early on its government signed a build-operate-transfer (BOT) lease deal of 60 years with one US Roofs Ltd. due to paucity of funds. The Arunachal Pradesh government agreed to have a small portion (10 percent of built up area) of the 15-storey building as its State guest house while the rest would be run by the private entity for commercial purposes.
The whole deal was in violation of CIDCO’s rules. In 2013, the CIDCO produced a show-cause notice, eventually followed by an evacuation notice, to the Arunachal Pradesh government for a “breach of contract.” The evacuation was stayed by an intervention of the Bombay High Court. The case is now with the Maharashtra State Government to further decide on.
Cancer patients in dock
The problem was that the building came under commercial use—today, this structure is called ‘Proxima Building’. The private developer (through a different deal, US Roofs gave the building to another private developer) gave a large chunk of the ground floor of the 15-storey building on rent to entities like a jeweler and a restaurant.
Meanwhile, cancer patients from Arunachal Pradesh who had nowhere but the Arunachal Bhawan to stay at complained in 2016 to then visiting Chief Minister Kaikho Pul that the private players running the building had reportedly denied them “access to lifts for commuting between the floors and were denied entry to the building through the main entrance.”
In a 2017 letter, stated a news site, the cancer patients requested the Prime Minister’s intervention to bail out the property from the grip of the private builder. They also mentioned that just after the Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister’s (this time Pema Khandu) assurance to solve the problems of the patients and visitors, the builder started construction which ultimately narrowed all the open spaces which included corridors of 8-9 rooms which were allotted for Arunachal Bhawan.
They further claimed that the builders had disconnected the television and air conditioner connections and restricted them from cooking food during the day.
In 2017, the Arunachal Students’ Union Mumbai alleged that the private developers had attempted to dismantle the state guest house and emporium. Furthermore, cancer patients were left in the dock when the Arunachal Pradesh government failed to pay its share of electric bills.
In a loop
A Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India, profile of the Director of US Roofs Ltd. showed that in 2009, they floated an entity called the ‘Arunachal Pradesh Infrastructural Development Corporation Ltd.’
The same Director floated another entity called the ‘Nagaland Infrastructural Development Corporation Pvt. Ltd.’ in 2013. Who co-directs the company? The Director of ‘Zacharia Chemicals Pvt. Ltd.’—the same person who wrote to the Chief Minister of Nagaland in August 2017 with the proposal to ‘manage, maintain and develop’ Nagaland House in Navi Mumbai.
While the MCA database failed to show up any results for ‘Zacharia Industries Pvt. Ltd.’, it gave other clues. The person stated to be the Director of ‘Zacharia Chemicals Pvt. Ltd.’ (registered in Chembur, Mumbai) also happens to be the Director of another private entity by the name ‘Nagaland Cement Pvt. Ltd.’ This, in turn, is co-owned by the Director of US Roofs Ltd.
According to the MCA, US Roofs, Arunachal Pradesh Infrastructural Development Corporation Ltd., Nagaland Infrastructural Development Corporation Pvt. Ltd. are all registered in one office that operates out of plot 19 of Sector 30A in Vashi, aka, Arunachal Bhawan.
It is Zacharia Industries Pvt. Ltd. that has now proposed to float a joint venture with the Nagaland State Government termed Nagaland Residency LLC (NRL) to take over the functioning of the Nagaland House in Navi Mumbai for the next 60 years. To be continued…
