- Maharashtra government has denied filmmaker Rohit Arya's Rs 2 crore claim for leading cleanliness drives
- The Education Department said Arya's project had incomplete documentation and showed inflated costs
- Arya held 19 people hostage, including 17 children, at a Mumbai studio before being killed by police
The Maharashtra government has distanced itself from claims by Rohit Arya - the Mumbai filmmaker who held 19 people, including 17 children, hostage Thursday - that he was owed Rs 2 crore for an urban sanitation and cleanliness drive led by his company, Apsara Media Entertainment Network.
Arya made that claim in a video released before the hostage crisis. He also said he wanted answers to what he called 'simple, moral, and ethical' demands, though he did not offer specifics.
In a statement issued hours after the drama in the city's Powai area - which ended with Arya shot and killed in a police rescue operation - the Education Department confirmed the filmmaker and Apsara Media had been selected in 2022 and 2023 to lead Project Let's Change, an urban sanitation drive.
The initiative included 59 lakh students being deputed as 'swachhata (cleanliness) monitors'.
A sum of Rs 9.9 lakh was then disbursed via a government order dated June 30, 2023.
The second phase was executed for 2023/24 via the Mukhyamantri Majhi Shala Sundar Shala, and a sum of Rs 20.63 crore was set aside, including Rs 2 crore for the 'swachhata monitors'.
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But project documentation submitted by Arya for this purpose was incomplete, the Education Department said Thursday night. This included apparently inflated costs for advertising, manpower, technical support, and screening of Arya's 'Let's Change' documentary.
"... due to these technical gaps the scheme could not be implemented", the department said.
A year later Arya asked for the scheme to be re-implemented, this time for all schools in the state, and submitted another demand for money, specifically Rs 2.42 crore.
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The proposal was being studied when another discrepancy was spotted.
Arya, the government has said, was collecting money - a 'registration fee' - from schools taking part in the cleanliness drive in his capacity as Director of Project Let's Change.
But Arya, the government said, was not authorised to make collections.
"Certain procedures - tenders, terms and conditions, etc. - are required for government projects. However, no such procedures appear to have been implemented in this case... the private media firm collected money from schools, which is not permissible as per government rules," the state's Education Minister, Dadaji Bhuse, told reporters Thursday night.
The Education Department issued a similar clarification.
In August last year Arya was directed to deposit the money he collected into a government account, and told that his proposal to renew the 'swachhata monitors' initiative would not be taken up till the money was returned and he filed an affidavit promising not to collect funds.
Arya did not return the money or file that affidavit, the government said.
And the initiative itself was disbanded after last year's Assembly election and the return of Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister at the head of the BJP-led Mahayuti administration.
Arya's wife, Anjali Arya, later told reporters her husband had fought both for the money promised, i.e., the Rs 2 crore he claimed had been sanctioned, and recognition for his work.
With input from agencies
