It was a slowdown in the US markets that prompted US presidential hopeful Donald Trump to come looking for new opportunities in Pune.
Trump Organisation, founded by Trump, partnered with Panchshil Realty to build the twin Trump towers in Pune in 2012. It also partnered with the Lodha Group in 2014 to build a tower in Mumbai.
The project in Pune, however, has come under the scanner of the Pune government and local police, reported The Guardian.
According to the report “discrepancies were found in documents related to the land on which the luxury apartment block is being built.”
Talking to The Guardian, Saurabh Rao, the district collector for Pune said:
We are currently in the investigation process. We have been conducting an inquiry for the last five or six months.
Rao revealed that the investigation was started following a complaint by a local builder Ravi Bharate, who questioned the permission documents using the Right to Information Act (RTI).
Rao confirmed to The Guardian that there were irregularities:
“There are definitely two different files [with the same number]. Usually it never happens that there are two files with the same number.”
Police inspector Sanjay Patil, who conducted a primary inquiry into the complaint also said that the investigation from their end is ongoing.
“We are waiting for various department heads to reply to our requests for more information,” he added.
Trump’s major contribution to the project is his name, as the organisation hasn’t invested any of its own money in it.
Trump usually allows developers to use his name for $5-10m, and “sometimes takes a cut from the sales figures,” the report said. According to the business partner in the Pune project, “Trump would get a share of revenue from the project, but did not say how much.”
Source: The Guardian