Hindustan Times: Chandigarh: Saturday,
May 28, 2016.
Lok Sabha
member from Patiala Dr Dharamvira Gandhi on Friday dared deputy chief minister
Sukhbir Badal to come clean on the alleged land scam running into hundreds of
crores of rupees involving real estate companies, in the garb of housing
schemes for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the state. Dr Gandhi was
elected to the Lok Sabha on an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket but was suspended
from the party in August 2015 for anti-party activities.
“Political
bigwigs such as chief parliamentary secretary N K Sharma and Mohali mayor
Kulwant Singh are among the main culprits in the scam and they did so under the
patronage of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal,” Dr
Gandhi said at a press conference here on Friday.
Dr Gandhi
also accused local government minister Anil Joshi of conniving with the
realtors and land mafia, saying “the municipal committees of various towns have
no record related to such housing projects”.
“The nagar
councils of towns, including Kharar, Zirakpur, Dera Bassi, Lalru and Banur,
have no record related to the upcoming or commissioned housing projects and,
thus, the entire real estate business in their respective notified areas is
going on unchecked,” said whistleblower and AAP’s Mohali media coordinator
Satnam Daun, who was with Dr Gandhi at the press conference.
‘The Scam’
Dr Gandhi
accused the senior officials of Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA),
Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA), and such authorities of
Ludhiana, Bathinda, Jalandhar and Amritsar zones of illegally facilitating
private builders by collecting money from the applicants under the EWS category
and selling the units to private people, ignoring lakhs of EWS applicants.
“The
companies have been getting land at highly subsidised rates for building up to
10% houses for the EWS category in their housing projects as per Punjab
Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995,” he said.
In a glaring
example, he said, TDI Homes Pvt Ltd had collected Rs 15,000 each from about
one-lakh EWS applicants in 2009, promising them flats at subsidised rates on
Mohali-Kharar road. But the company neither allotted them a house nor returned
the application fee. The GMADA in this particular case was the nodal agency to
implement and facilitate the EWS scheme, but it never took any action against
the TDI,” said Dr Gandhi.
In Mohali,
GMADA had taken a “damage control measure” by sending notices to 11 real estate
companies for retrieval of 102 acres in all. “The land is being retrieved, but
there has not been any punitive action for this criminal neglect on the part of
these builders,” Dr Gandhi pointed out.
Daun also
said he had received “threats to his life” in Mohali and was also offered
bribes in crores in lieu of withdrawing pleas seeking information under the RTI
Act about various such shady projects.
Daun was also
attacked near the Mohali SSP office in December 2014 for which an FIR was
registered against “unidentified persons”, even as Daun had named a Kharar
builders.
Accountability
to Parliament
Dr Gandhi,
who is also a member of the parliamentary committee on housing and urban
development, told reporters that the Punjab chief secretary had assured the
committee in August last year that the state government would look into the
matter and take measures to come clean on the entire matter.
“But we (the
parliamentary committee) are still waiting for the state’s reply to certain
aspects raised with chief secretary Sarvesh Kaushal,” Dr Gandhi said.
He said the
report of the parliamentary committee was yet to be made public.
Land
retrieved, punitive action missing
As per the
information given under the RTI Act, the GMADA has so far retrieved 102 acres
in all from 11 erring companies for not allotting houses to the EWS applicants.
These included Country Colonisers Pvt Ltd (12.34 acres), Janta Land Promoters
Ltd (9.81 acres), MRMGF (15.52 acres), Omaxe Pvt Ltd (10.7 acres), PACL (18.31
acres), Ansals Group (4.03 acres), DLF (5.78 acres), TDI Housing Pvt Ltd (4.5
acres), Unitech Homes (12.5 acres), Panchsheel Cooperative Society (1.32 acres)
and Bajwa developers (7.15 acres).
Now, the
GMADA would be making the houses for the EWS applicants on these chunks of
land, bailing out the builders without any punitive action against them, Dr
Gandhi said, explaining the connivance of the senior officials concerned.
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