Jaspal orders plot probe

A senior official in the State Rural Development Department told the Express Newsline on Thursday that it was found that over 1.40 lakh residential plots, admeasuring 50 sq m to 100 sq m, had been allotted to the people in direct contravention of the eligibility criteria set by the government under the Sardar Avas Yojana.

As many as 90,495 allotments have been cancelled, while the process of recovering the rest of the plots is in progress. Junagadh district tops the list with 18,464 illegal allotments of residential plots, followed by Vadodara 14,271 plots, Amreli 13,288, Dahod 7,136, Bhavnagar 6,741, Jamnagar 4,121, Rajkot 4,107, Surendranagar 3,953, Kutch 3,677 and Valsad 2,774.

Within days of his taking over the new assignment of Rural Housing about four months ago, Jaspal Singh, who is known for launching crusades against corrupt practices, directed ACS Rural Development T C A Rangadurai to inquire into these irregularities. Rangadurai, in turn, instructed the State Development Commissioner to launch a State-wide investigation.

Following this, inspections teams of officers of the Development Commissionerate were constituted and despatched to different parts of the State to not only investigate the poor construction of houses, but also irregularities in plot allotment.

quot;The inspection teams have been trudging the rural areas for the last three months but much more remains to be done. We will have to press into service many more such inspections teams to expedite investigations and prepare a report at the earliest to be submitted to the ministerquot;, the official said, adding, quot;action will be initiated against the supervisory and technical personnel attached to the District and Taluka Development Offices concerned that are the implementing agenciesquot;.

Confirming the rampant corruption in the implementation of the rural housing scheme, Jaspal Singh told Express Newsline, quot;As soon as I took charge of this new department, I started touring rural areas in different districts. And I was shocked to see that most of the dwellings constructed for the poor over the years, particularly during 1997-98, were not worth living in. In certain cases, the plots were found to have been allotted to those who did not meet the eligibility criteriaquot;.

The minister said, quot;I have already discussed this with Chief Secretary L N S Mukundan and invited him to visit such areas. I am also going to request Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel to visit these places and see for himself what is happening under the Sardar Avas Yojanaquot;.

In a bid to provide quality houses to the rural poor living below the poverty line, Singh had recently engaged Ahmedabad8217;s leading architect Hasmukh Patel and asked him to prepare a prototype design for better quality houses.

quot;Designed by the architect, three new units have been set up at Angnaj village in Daskroi taluka of Ahmedabad district. I invite anyone to visit this village to feel the difference between the newly designed houses and those constructed in previous yearsquot;, he said. quot;I propose to replicate this all over the State,quot; he added.

Though the estimated cost of a newly designed house is about Rs 31,000, as against Rs 22,000 being provided to each of the beneficiaries to construct his house, the government is thinking of revising and raising the present assistance criterion for the same.

quot;The budgetary provision for the rural housing scheme is Rs 122 crore, but we don8217;t mind raising more funds through a supplementary demand,quot; the official pointed out.

Under the five-year plan 1997-2000, the government has set the target of constructing 2.5 lakh houses under the Sardar Avas Yojana, against which over 42,000 houses had already been constructed in 1997-98 and 1998-99, while 58,000 units more are expected to be completed by March 2000. Besides allotting the plots, the government provides cent per cent subsidy to beneficiaries to construct their dwellings.