By Dr.Naveen Anand Joshi
Mumbai/Bhopal: The restaurant in Mumbai City in a building maintained by the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation has tarnished the reputation of Madhya Lok Bhawan Mumbai, the “Aan, Baan and Shaan of the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP).
The irony is that the MP government has been against serving alcohol and intoxicating drinks are served in a restaurant functioning in the building under the control of the same government. Interestingly the officials of the state tourism department responsible for maintaining and managing the building are suspiciously silent on these “illicit” operations.
Not only this, when the Mumbai staff of the Tourism Development Corporation protested against the illegal activities , they were physically assaulted and no action has been contemplated yet against the culprits.
These days hooliganism is at its peak in the Madhya Lok MP Bhawan in Mumbai, the industrial capital of the country. A Nagpur-based company which has been contracted for operations by the MP Tourism Development Corporation is allegedly acting at will with no hindrance from officials. This company is said to be operating the restaurant flouting all norms and sells liquor without any license.
According to sources, manager and employees of the tourism corporation posted here were assaulted many times and no action was taken against the attackers. On July 26 the manager of Madhyalok Bhavan was physically assaulted, reportedly by the henchmen of the company that runs the restaurant. Though the incident was reported to higher officials in Bhopal, no action was initiated against the ‘criminals’ or provided any protection for the employees.
In fact, the tourism corporation officials have been facing physical threats from this company for some time and the top bosses at Bhopal are maintaining stoic silence on the assaults on their employees, for obvious reasons. According to sources a former top official of the Tourism Corporation had deals with similar controversial companies in Chhindwara, Indore, Jabalpur and other places and this Nagpur based company was also allegedly given the Mumbai contract at the behest of the same former official.
