Mumbai: The state govt has allotted a prime and sought-after property, the BMC hydraulic engineer’s bungalow near Hanging Garden in Malabar Hill, to BJP minister Ashish Shelar.
Retired IAS officer and former municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi, who is currently the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Maharashtra Institute for Transformation (MITRA), was allotted the bungalow in Aug 2023. Pardeshi has now been given the B-2 Ratnasindhu bungalow, opposite Mantralaya, which was earlier given to Shelar.
Shelar is the minister for information technology (IT) and culture. He is also president of the BJP city unit.
“The govt decided to allot the HE’s [hydraulic engineer’s] bungalow, which is now in the possession of BMC, to Ashish Shelar. MITRA CEO Praveen Pardeshi is allotted B-2 Ratnasindhu bungalow. The minister as well as CEO MITRA shall be required to vacate the accommodation allotted to them within 15 days after they are relieved of their duties,” the Govt Resolution (GR) issued by the general administration department (GAD) said.
The MVA govt gave the hydraulic engineer’s bungalow near Hanging Garden to the then city guardian minister Aslam Shaikh. When the MVA govt fell in July 2022, Shaikh vacated the bungalow, and it was later allotted to then additional municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar. Soon after that, it was allotted to Pardeshi.
Usually, only municipal employees can be provided accommodation in BMC properties. An IAS officer of the 1985 batch, Pardeshi was part of CMO during Devendra Fadnavis’s first stint as chief minister from 2014 to 2019. Later, he became municipal commissioner.
MITRA is a think-tank set up on the lines of the NITI Aayog.