Cracking whip against the land mafia in a multi-crore land scam, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on late Saturday directed the Deputy Commissioner of Jammu to submit a comprehensive report on alleged allotment of reclaimed land of a waterbody for commercial sites in violation of Jammu masterplan. Responding to the news report published in The Pioneer and public anger, which spilled on to the streets two days ago, Singh along with senior district officers inspected the Channi- Himmat area and ordered immediate closure of land reclamation work along the ‘Thanger nallah’ in Channi-Himmat.
After inspecting the site and interacting with a group of senior citizens of the Housing colony, Singh directed Deputy Commissioner, Ajeet Sahu, to submit a comprehensive report along with relevant revenue records for necessary action. The Deputy Chief Minister also assured agitating locals of conducting a thorough enquiry into the matter before fixing the responsibility of officials of the J&K Housing board.
Singh earlier faced public anger for failing to initiate formal enquiry against the shady land deals done by a senior Congress Minister in the Omar Abdullah-led alliance Government. BJP high command also took serious note of the inaction on the part of the BJP Minister in-charge of the Housing and Urban department.
After the lid was blown over multi-crore land scam several delegations had called on local BJP MlA Kavinder Gupta and Housing and Urban Development Minister to initiate action against the deep rooted nexus between the land mafia and officials of the J&K Housing board but in vain.
According to official sources, “J&K Housing board had allegedly allotted commercial sites through back door to select few businessmen without following rules of procedure ahead of the Assembly elections. Even some of the senior officials of the Housing board had raised the issue of violation of master plan at the time of out of turn allotment of commercial sites but were silenced.
The local residents, while accusing the previous dispensation of committing gross irregularities, demanded that the BJP-PDP Government should take the lid off the shady land deals and make public the names of beneficiaries who were allotted commercial sites on the reclaimed land of the water body by the Congress Minister.