An activist, Anil Galgali, recently filed an RTI application to get details of five acres of land in Bombay University’s Kalina campus, which have been leased for eight months to a production house for shooting a web series. The University’s reply to the RTI application states that no government permission or legal advice had been sought and no tender had been called for before leasing out 5 acres of the 250-acre campus land to Siddhesh Enterprises at a cumulative rent of Rs. 75 lakh. The reply adds that the permission was granted to the company from November 2021 to June 2022 on terms and conditions suggested by a committee set up on the recommendation of the management council. The varsity had also informed a nodal agency appointed by the government to monitor such contracts.
Galgali has alleged that the University was shortchanged, perhaps, due to the involvement of some politicians. He has demanded a high-level inquiry into the matter in a letter addressed to the governor, chief minister and education minister. According to Anil Galgali, “It would have been better for the University not to have taken this route in the sacred temple of education. If tenders had been invited with the government’s permission, and legal advice had been sought, the rent would have been in crores because the rent at Film City at Goregaon in Bombay is higher. It was necessary to know the rates there.”