lokayukt Retd Justice NK Mehrotra, finally recommended a high level probe into the large scale irregularities made in land use changes, after a cursory glimpse of changes made in just last two years in some districts unearthed a loss of over 15 crore of rupees to state exchequer and over a dozen PCS officers posted as SDM and even as senior officials in the revenue departments were found involved in it.
The probe would now not just help to recover the loss revenue but also to punish over 100 of senior officers mostly of PCS cadre who were frequently making changes in thesil records to facilitate builders and were making huge money out of it.
`I had dispatched a report to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav recommending to immediately form a high level team of officials of Board of Revenue Department and of Economic Offence Wing (EOW), and probe the land use change made in all the districts of the state during last five years”, disclosed Mehrotra while disclosing that how an enquiry by him into land use changes just in last two years in some districts like Mathura, Agra, Ghaziabad, and Barabanki revealed a total loss of more than 15.06 crores to state exchequer in just last 2-years. He sent his recommendation to chief minister on Monday morning.
Mehrotra, who sees a huge loss to state exchequer through stamp duty theft on registration of lands, revealed that in Ghaziabad, local authorities had facilitated the builders which costs government more than Rs 7 crore. He said that during probe, he found that land use of several dozen of plots in Shahpur Mehta locality, have been changed from Agriculture land to residential areas, citing that the area has been already developed by the builders and that in town plan for 2021, the land has been allocated for residential areas. However, much tohis surprise, on April 1 last year, the same land use has been once again changed to agriculture. He claimed that the probe showed that all the rules were mended to facilitate one Saurya Construction, a leading real estate company. According to Mehrotra, the estimated loss to state exchequer by just above one company comes to over Rs 7.13 crore. He said that if further enquiry would be made, this loss might be running into several more crores of rupees. Besides, Saurya Construction, the report sent from Ghaziabad already confirmed that 9 major cases involving builders like Ms Ambassdor, Ms Amazon, Ms Aznara, Ms Crossing, Ms Panchsheel, Ms New Capital etc, all big real estate companies, had connived with the local authorities to capitalise on land use change thus resulting to loss of several crore
rupees to state exchequer.
like Ghaziabad, in Agra also 5 such cases of land use change were found during last two years in Khairabad and Airawali thesils.
likewise, in Barabanki, 19 land use change has been made just in Haidergarh and Nawabganj which resulted into huge loss to government revenue. The administration in Kanpur and Gautambudhnagar (Nodia) yet not completed the findings and seek more time from Mehrotra, after he summoned a report in this record.
In Mathura case also, probe by Mehrotra pointed towards an organized `syndicate’ between land mafias and builders with the revenue officials, causing state exchequer several thousand crores of rupees every year. The gang capitalised by making land use changes at their will. He also get a case registered in the Mathura incident against SDM Mathura, Ramesh Chandra, and suspension of lekhpal, Sapan Bhardwaj, in the matter. Mehrortra, who than visited Mathura to examine the facts, claimed that out of 31 land change use cases detected by him so far just in Mathura, state chequer has suffered a
total loss of more than Rs 4.10 crore.
It may be mentioned that a large scale of fraud in land change use had already been detected as the builders mushroomed in all the highways connecting all the big towns. Interestingly, several senior IAS officers were manning the Revenue Department, the nodal agency to check revenue loss to the State government but despite of probe
pointing towards it and several news item already published in news papers of how a syndicate is operative in land use change, but still no cognizance have been taken in the matter.