Dr Gandhi alleges ‘mega scam’ in name of housing for poor
Saturday, 28/05/2016
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Names SAD leader NK Sharma and Mohali mayor Kulwant Singh as ‘main culprits’
CHANDIGARH: 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.
“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 (PU DA ), 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 ` 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.
