Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray

Devendra Fadnavis

Maha Vikas Aghadi government

Bullet Train project

Coastal Road linking

Versova-Bandra Sea Link

Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Uddhav Thackeray

Untitled Carousel Well done, Mr CM, but don’t forget, the entire city is watching The stop-work notice to a car shed at Aarey Colony is, hopefully, the first step towards saving the green lung

has ordered a review of all projects/proposals cleared by’s government in the last six months. And he hasn’t just stopped at the review. His specific instruction to the bureaucrats is to not release any payment for the projects till the time theclears them. A senior bureaucrat said that payments for only those projects that are 100% complete will be released.After standing toe-to-toe with Fadnavis and the BJP top rung over government formation, Thackeray is making no bones about his interpretation of the Fadnavis cabinet’s policies. Immediately after taking charge as chief minister, Thackeray announced that the metro car shed at Aarey Colony has been put on hold pending review. Yesterday, his six-day-old government “deprioritised” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project of running a bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad (see Page 4).Sources in the state bureaucracy said that apart from the, the other major projects under the scanner are the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Corridor, estimated to cost Rs 46,000 crore, thesouth Mumbai to the Western suburbs, likely to cost Rs 12,000 crore, the Rs 7,000-crore, and the construction of the third bridge on the Thane Creek, which is expected to cost Rs 800 crore. There’s also the on-going tunnelling for a six-km missing link of thewhich is being reviewed, the sources said.On Monday, while announcing a review of the Bullet Train project, he said, “Like you asked now, yes, we will review the Bullet Train project. Have I stayed the project like the Aarey car shed? No, I haven’t.”The same day, Thackeray announced the withdrawal of cases against those who had protested the construction of a refinery in Nanar in Ratnagiri district. The Sena had opposed the complex, estimated to cost upwards of Rs 3 lakh crore, and Thackeray had promised to get these cases withdrawn at several of his poll rallies.“The idea of the project review exercise is to make sure complete transparency was maintained while awarding the contracts. All state departments have been asked to submit a list of projects they are handling to the Chief Minister’s Office. Obviously big-ticket contractors are also under the scanner,” a bureaucrat said.Thackeray himself promised a white paper on the state’s financial condition while insisting that his government was firm on giving “unconditional loan waiver to farmers” despite Maharashtra’s debt of around Rs 5 lakh crore.