The discretionary quota (DQ) has been well- manipulated as though it was the affluent Netas’ and Babus’ Indira Awas and Mo Kudia.
The State and Central Governments have launched the pro-poor housing schemes like the IAY and Mo Kudia for those people who do not have a roof on their head. They are provided matching financial grants for construction of houses in order that they get rehabilitated. The Mo Kudia is a much-hyped housing scheme of the State BJD Government to provide concrete houses to the rural poor so that there is no kutcha house in any village. But what is the DQ in the housing plans of the General Administration (GA) department, Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), Odisha Cooperative Housing Corporation (OCHC) and Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) forIJ
There are clear guidelines as to who would get plot and house under the DQ in the capital city and Cuttack under the BDA and CDA. But the problem is the law implementers and the Ministers and MlAs have unabashedly twisted rules to lay their hand on multiple properties either in their names or of the kin and relatives. The crorepati leaders and officials have done it in a hush-hush way over the years.
The poor people under the BPl are entitled to get Indira Awas and Mo Kudia. But it is no secret who actually avail the facility — the people who are close to the political leaders and can help fetch votes. Even when a genuinely poor man manages to become a beneficiary, he has to part with a lion’s share of the financial grant for bribing the officials and public representatives. Manipulation and corruption is rampant in the IAY and Mo Kudia schemes but the culprits go scot-free owing to a strong bureaucrat-leader nexus.
The same nexus is also behind the manipulation of the DQ. leaders and top bureaucrats who remained at the helm of affairs in the allotments of plot and flat under various schemes of the GA department, BDA, OCHC and CDA at different points of time managed to grab properties by submitting false affidavits. The Taradatt- led Task Force report has at least made this clear and at the same time, called for a need to have an independent and comprehensive probe into the allotments made by the Government agencies.
The Task Force investigation is therefore not complete and probably for that matter, the Government has ordered a Vigilance probe into the irregularities. But the same question remains: When the high profile leaders and officials are involved in the scam and the Vigilance is a State-controlled agency, how could the probe be comprehensive, fair, neutral and conclusiveIJ
The Vigilance, State police and Crime Branch probes into various multi crore scams like the mining and chit fund have not been satisfactory as here the culprits are not men-next-door but rich and influential persons. The Opposition’s stand that there was no need for a Vigilance probe into the multiple allotments of properties and the Government should have taken instant action against the persons, howsoever powerful they may be, who have owned flats and plots illegally based on the Taradatt panel findings is justified.
The BJD MlAs and Ministers are not the lone beneficiaries who took Government properties by twisting rules. The BJP leaders also don’t seem to lag behind. The probe by the Taradatt panel based on inadequate and selective information and documents supplied by various Government agencies pertaining to their allotments has brought to the fore how leaders of both the BJP and BJD who held important portfolios did not care to throw all norms to wind to grab public properties.
As per the list prepared by the Task Force, not just BJD Ministers Bikram Keshari Arukh, Ashok Panda, Pradip Maharathy or MlA Pranab Balabantray, son of Rajya Sabha member Kalpataru Das, Pratima Das, wife of Kalpataru Das, BJD MlA Pravat Biswal, former Minister and BJD MlA Pramila Mallick, Sobhamayee Dehuri wife of MP Nagendra Pradhan were allottes, but BJP’s top leaders and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s father and former Union Minster Debendra Pradhan and senior BJP leader and Union Minister Jual Oram have owned properties under the DQ.
Similarly, two former Housing and Urban Development Ministers—Bhupinder Singh and Samir Dey— between 1999 and 2004 had allotted land and houses under DQ as ex-officio chairpersons of BDA and CDA. BJP president KV Singh Deo’s name too figures in the Ghangapatna land scam. Among the senior bureaucrats who have availed the DQ are Water Resources Secretary Pradip Jena, Forest and Environment Secretary RK Sharma, former Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik, IPS Satyajit Mohanty, IAS officers Nikunja Dhal and Vishal Dev, Bishnupada Sethi, Surendra Tripathy, Ashwini Baishnab and Pramod Mohanty.
The Task Force report has stated that the BDA allotted Government land and flats under 21 new housing schemes since 1995. Besides, it also allotted surplus land and houses under16 previous housing schemes. In the last 19 years, the BDA allotted 803 houses and plots under DQ in gross violation of the norms, while 921 houses and plots have been allotted by the CDA.