Times of
India: ludhiana: Saturday, 07 March 2020.
City-based
RTI activist Rohit Sabharwal has filed a complaint against tehbazaari officials
of the civic body for not maintaining the record of properties. He has demanded
vigilance inquiry from the chief secretary of the state government and the
ADGP-cum-chief director of the vigilance bureau.
He
mentioned in his complaint that the officials of encroachment wing admitted in
front of the Punjab State Information Commission (PSIC) that they could not
trace the file of society cinema lease contract from the office records.
He
alleged that some officials of the encroachment wing in connivance with private
people had plans to grab the drainage department’s land adjoining the cinema
and because of which they had misplaced the file.
The
activist claimed that he had filed a complaint against the officials for not
removing encroachments from the land which costed around Rs 20 crore.
He
said he tried to gather information under the RTI Act and asked the officials to
tell about the lease agreement of the society cinema and related information.
He
said he had to approach even the PSIC for information and officials gave in
writing that they could not trace the file and would reply when they find the
same.
He
said they could only share information that the land where the society cinema
was constructed was given at lease since 1956.
Sabharwal
claimed that the lease had expired long ago but the officials were not taking
over the land. He demanded an inquiry and action against the erring officials
for loss to public exchequer.
He
said if the official records went missing then why the civic officials did not
report the matter to the police and FIR was not registered against the officer
concerned.
Notably,
a third-party audit conducted recently by Grand Thornton company also had come
to light that out of 625 shops on rent from 479 shops, the civic officials did
not recover Rs 5 crore pending rent in the past 10 years. For 379 properties,
the rent deeds were missing from the records. However, additional commissioner
Rishipal, taking note of the audit objection, issued directions to find the
missing files and a few of these files were found too.
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