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Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has rejected claims by filmmaker Rohit Arya that he was owed Rs 2 crore for an urban cleanliness project carried out by his company, Apsara Media Entertainment Network. Arya, who took 19 people, including 17 children, hostage in Mumbai’s Powai on Thursday, was shot dead in a police rescue operation later that evening.
Before the incident, Arya released a video alleging that the government owed him money for his role in a sanitation initiative and said he wanted answers to what he described as “simple, moral, and ethical” demands. He did not elaborate further on these demands.
According to a statement from the state’s Education Department, Apsara Media Entertainment Network was engaged in 2022 and 2023 to lead Project Let’s Change, an urban sanitation campaign involving nearly 5.9 million students appointed as “swachhata (cleanliness) monitors.” The department confirmed that a payment of Rs 9.9 lakh had been released in June 2023 under the first phase of the scheme.
The following year, a second phase was initiated under the Mukhyamantri Majhi Shala Sundar Shala programme, with Rs 20.63 crore allocated, including Rs 2 crore earmarked for the student monitors. However, officials stated that Arya’s project documentation was incomplete and contained inflated expenditure claims related to advertising, manpower, technical services, and the screening of his documentary 'Let’s Change.'
“... due to these technical gaps the scheme could not be implemented,” the department’s statement read.
In 2024, Arya reportedly sought to relaunch the initiative across all state schools and demanded Rs 2.42 crore. While his proposal was under review, officials discovered that he had been collecting money from schools as a registration fee in his capacity as the project’s director, something the government said he was never authorised to do.
"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," said Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse, as per a NDTV report.
The Education Department said Arya had been instructed in August 2024 to deposit the collected funds into a government account and warned that his proposal to renew the programme would not be considered until he did so and filed an affidavit pledging not to raise money independently. Arya allegedly failed to comply.
The initiative was later scrapped following the state Assembly elections and the return of Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister under the BJP-led Mahayuti government.
Following the Powai incident, Arya’s wife, Anjali Arya, told reporters that her husband had been fighting for both the Rs 2 crore he believed had been sanctioned and for acknowledgment of his work on the cleanliness drive.
