Days after the new Maharashtra government decided to cancel the earlier government’s decision to shift the Metro carshed from Aarey forest, it has now decided to stay all administrative approvals in the ongoing fiscal under the District Planning and Development Council (DPDC) until new guardian ministers are appointed for the districts.
In a circular issued by the State planning department on Monday, the State’s Planning department said that the district level planning committees need to be reassembled with new members and special invitees. “On this background, under the provisions of section 12 of Maharashtra District Planning Committee (Constitution and Functions) Act, 1998, all the administrative approvals to various developmental works for year 2022-23 from April 1, 2022 have been stayed,” it said.
The circular further added that following the appointment of new district guardian ministers, the list of works given administrative approval will be presented in front of them and based on their approval, the decision of whether to continue the said work or not would be taken.
On Monday, after winning the trust vote in the State assembly, both Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said that the new government will not stop any developmental work undertaken by the previous government.
During his speech, Mr. Shinde also said that the Shiv Sena worker did not benefit despite party president Uddhav Thackeray becoming the Chief Minister, whereas he will ensure that ground level workers benefit from the present government. The works allotted under DPDC are usually proposed by the workers, leaders of the ruling party for the benefit of their constituencies, voters, and target areas where the ruling party hopes to expand in future.
As the new government is yet to finalise its cabinet ministers, the stay is likely to extend by at least two weeks awaiting the finalisation of names of guardian minister of each district.
The new government has already overturned the previous government’s decision of shifting Metro-3 carshed out of Aarey and has decided to restart the Jalyukta Shiwar scheme – a pet scheme initiated by the then CM and now DCM Mr. Fadnavis.
