Govt dips into pet cash-box, MMRDA, to save Vikrant

MUMBAI, July 14: The Shiv Sena-BJP government has prepared the ground to raise nearly Rs 6 crore for the book value payment for the naval...

MUMBAI, July 14: The Shiv Sena-BJP government has prepared the ground to raise nearly Rs 6 crore for the book value payment for the naval ship, Vikrant, from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), one of the few remaining cash-boxes of the government.

However, even as the MMRDA began the formal process of approving and sanctioning the amount – in itself questionable since a maritime museum on a decommissioned ship cannot be explained as Mumbai’s infrastructure – a series of developments in New Delhi mean that this amount may not be required after all. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee promised to consider waiving the book value that the state government would have to pay the Indian Navy. It was pegged at Rs 5.8 crore, equal to the highest bid received by the Union government for scrapping the warship. Vajpayee apparently assured a BJP delegation that the Union government would do everything possible to help the state government convert the Vikrant into a nationalmaritime museum.

Apart from the waiver, the Union government will consider subsidising the cost of converting the ship into a maritime museum – most probably an annual subsidy of Rs 10 crore for the next few years, said Kirit Somaiya, Mumbai BJP president. Others in the delegation included Minister of State for Railways, Ram Naik, convenor of the party’s cultural cell Kiran Paigankar and party treasurer Ved Prakash Goel.

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They met Vajpayee for about 20 minutes on Tuesday and argued that even if the state government managed to raise the Rs 6 crore required, it would eventually go the Union government itself; so, the Union government should consider a waiver. Indian Navy officials have not reacted to this suggestion so far. Their acquiescence is important since the ship will have to be `bought off’ the Navy first.

If the waiver is granted, the state government can breathe a little easy since it will have to dip into its – read MMRDA’s – cash-box to carry out immediate repairs to the ship. There has beenlittle or no maintenance work on the Vikrant since she was de-commissioned. The total estimate for repairs, dry docking and subsequent conversion to a maritime museum is around Rs 70 crore.

An annual subsidy from the Union government will ease the pressure off the state government and it will be in the fitness of things since the maritime museum will be a national monument, said a senior bureaucrat. The government has already requested the Mumbai Port Trust for dry docking facilities, he added.