The General Administration Department (GAD) has framed certain guidelines in consultation with the law Department relating to the adoption of the Taskforce report. The suggested modalities are proposed to be sent to the GAD and then to the Housing and Urban Development Department “with proper instructions”. Meanwhile, Taradatt, who headed the Taskforce, is in a different post, training young officers. He is out of the decision-making process.
Media reports also suggest that the State Cabinet decided in December last to scrap all house and plot allotments under the discretionary quota (DQ) on or after January 1, 1995. It also decided to conduct a Vigilance inquiry and initiate criminal proceedings against those who produced false affidavits to get plots and houses under the DQ. Reliable sources also say that 1,791 plot and house allotments under the DQ stand cancelled. They include 803 by the BDA, 921 by the CDA and 67 by the OSHB. The Taskforce had listed about 6,000 flats and plots allotted by BDA, CDA, OSHB and GAD to be illegal. The cases of those giving false affidavits stand on a different footing. But wide and unfettered use of the DQ cannot be attributed solely to an applicant beneficiary.
It is interesting that although the Government has abolished the DQ, it has not evolved a rational policy regulating such allotments. As advised by the Supreme Court, any and every State largesse is not necessarily to be auctioned. We are now in a piquant situation. The past period from 1995 onwards would be churned because of lack of adequate policy framework and the resultant abuse of power in the hands of the Government functionaries. Alongside, as of now, we are still in the limbo and are directionless in matters of allotment of lands and flats in the absence of objective and pragmatic criteria regulating the field. The hiking of prices of land and flats has been substantially aided by faulty policies of the Government. The increase in land prices has also contributed to the mushrooming of high-rise buildings, contrary to the original horizontal city-concept of Bhubaneswar.
The other day I had a query from a very renowned doctor, who belongs to Odisha but works elsewhere. He has a house in Bhubaneswar allotted by the Government on requisite payment and he plans to settle down in Bhubaneswar after his retirement, which is not far away. His settling down in Bhubaneswar would be adding to the quality of life in the city. But his anxious call was whether the Government by the stroke of the pen had rendered him homeless or without a roof over his head. He hd applied for an allotment. He was called upon to pay the requisite price and by the criteria and through a decision-making process, which was beyond his control, he became a beneficiary thereof.
The Government is bound to issue show-cause notices to individual owners. One wonders what would be the justification and reason for enabling cancellation in such a case. Additionally, quite of few properties may have become freehold pursuant to the policy of the Government. Some of these properties may have been validly purchased or inherited. Inability to evolve an objective, realistic and rational policy cannot per se justify the blanket annulment of any and every beneficiary under the DQ. Taradatt is himself a victim of the “discretion” of the Government to transfer an employee as an incident of service. This arena of discretion is hardly guided by any criteria subserving good governance. Politicians move the bureaucrats on the chessboard of political and administrative expediency. They look for the trusted and obedient ones to be effective instruments of exercise of their power.
*While the scramble for plots/houses/flats goes on, the civic condition of Bhubaneswar requires immediate attention. Drain de-silting wok is yet to start in any part of the city, though the monsoon is not far away. There is likelihood of extensive waterlogging and this will further add to the spread of diseases like jaundice. Grassroots healthcare, especially for the weaker sections of the community, is still crying for attention. The present preoccupation (at least up to the completion of Car Festival) is the Nabakalebar of the three deities providing a diversion for the frustrated masses.
*In this land of lord Jagannath, we also have the NHRC breathing down the neck of the State government and its functionaries regarding the false implication of two innocent persons in Mayurbhanj district in the context of a heinous crime. The NHRC holds that such persons have been subjected to torture in custody and have been under detention for about four months in utter violation of their human and fundamental rights. One Sukadeb of Mayurbhanj and his brother-in-law were implicated by the police in connection with the “murder” of Sukadeb’s wife, who was very much alive. The police had found the body of a woman, and it was assumed that it was of Sukadeb’s wife. The identity of this dead body is yet to be ascertained. Sukadeb’s fault was to complain to the police that his wife lily had been missing for quite some time. Attempting to trace out lily cost Sukadeb dear. The police arrested, obviously “suspecting” that he had killed his wife, basing on the presumption that a putrefied body of a woman found from a well in a village was that of lily. The police also registered a murder case against lily’s brother Sudam. Both the brother and the husband though innocent, have been subjected to gross denial of their rights and to cruel illegal treatment.
It has been alleged that through custodial torture and related duress, they had admitted that they had killed lily. On September 9, 2014, four months after the arrest of the two persons, lily appeared before the Baripada court; she filed an affidavit stating that she was alive and her brother and husband have been falsely implicated in a murder case. We have to swallow that such instances are also to be seen as symptoms of good governance and the entire system is busy now in cleansing the society of the undesirable elements!
*Misuse and abuse of power are inevitable, unless the preventive and regulatory measures are meaningful and effective. So, here we are! We do not evolve an appropriate land policy; we have to cope with an insensitive police setup; and alongside, the value of a large section of the society is corroded through one-rupee rice and ten-rupee rice dalma. Karnataka has now taken a further lead in providing free rice to a section of the populace. That has now got to be matched through an appropriate measure so that we continue to be a lazy society, pulling each other down and not proud of being an enterprising Odia! This has resulted in a disillusioned youth, who have been driven to distorted aspirations. There is an urgent need for introspection, especially amongst the younger sections of the society to cause radical changes so that the future generation is not engulfed by socioeconomic debris and is not doped or duped by politico-religious opiate that inspires and eulogises the curse of poverty. This concerns all of us!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jyantdas@hotmail.com)