15 years after Adarsh scam, first society for bureaucrats to come up at Wadala
MUMBAI: The Indus Cooperative Housing Society, comprising 200 IAS and IPS officers, has been cleared to build a 22-storey tower in Wadala, Mumbai.
MUMBAI: A decade and a half after the infamous Adarsh housing society scam, a cooperative housing society of government officers is taking shape at Wadala in Central Mumbai. The society, called the Indus Cooperative Housing Society and comprising about 200 IAS and IPS officers, recently got a go-ahead from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) to build a 22-storey tower on a 13,000-square-metre plot allotted by the state government. This will be the first housing society of bureaucrats after the restrictions put in place by the government following the Adarsh controversy.

The society’s president, IPS officer Praveen Salunke, confirmed that some permissions had been received while others were in the pipeline.
A retired IPS officer, who claimed he had no house of his own in Mumbai, said, “There were no housing schemes floated for bureaucrats post the Adarsh society episode. In the last leg of his term as CM, Eknath Shinde granted us some clearances.” A little before the polls, a few housing societies formed by MLAs were also given land at Madh, as they could not develop earlier plots granted to them in Versova since they were covered with mangroves.
The minutes of the MCZMA meeting held on December 12, 2024 indicate that the Indus Society proposal has been cleared. The Development Plan remarks on this state that the plot under reference is situated in a residential zone. The plot area is 13,000 square metres and the FSI area is 37,412.26 square metres. The non-FSI area is 39,161.51 square metres and the total construction area is 76573.77 square metres.
The GST headquarters will also be shifted to the Wadala plot while a Customs Enclave will be constructed here. MMRDA had wanted to develop the whole area into another business district like Bandra Kurla Complex, but this failed to happen, as the connectivity was poor back then.
The Wadala plot was originally allotted to the bureaucrats in 2009, but after the Adarsh society matter blew up and the then Congress CM Ashok Chavan had to resign, his successor Prithviraj Chavan stayed all allotments.
A senior IAS officer said that earlier, government officers got multiple houses in Mumbai city, its suburbs and Navi Mumbai, as there were no restrictions. “Some of them even made their sons and daughters members,” he said. “The government now has a rule that anyone opting for the benefit of a housing scheme on government land can avail of this only once in a lifetime.”
The officer added that the Adarsh Society issue was taken up by the BJP, and the then CM Ashok Chavan had to face a CBI case in the matter. “The Congress leadership made him resign,” he said. The CBI case is still on, and Ashok Chavan joined the BJP in 2024.
In the Adarsh matter, both the state and the Centre had claimed ownership of the land. The Centre had contended that Adarsh was built on defence estate department land while the state claimed it was a Maharashtra revenue department plot. The army had also investigated the case, and said that the entire Colaba island was given by the British to the military, and it was thus defence land belonging to the Centre.
The promoters of Adarsh society had first claimed that it was a society for the kin of those killed in the Kargil war. Eventually, however, it was defence officers, state government officers and politicians who took the flats. The promoters of Adarsh had also not taken CRZ permission, and the then union environment minister Jairam Ramesh had issued demolition orders. The Bombay high court too had ordered its demolition. Today, Adarsh is still standing.
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