Allocation of Government land on a perpetual lease basis is a very valuable right being conferred on the allottee. Especially when the land is being allotted on highly concessional rate. It is in this connection that the antecedents of such organisations have to be verified. There are many organisations, which are fronts for anti-national groups, which many a time parade as Associations or Societies for carrying out their activities. — An extract from a dissent note of July 15, 2002 written by then Urban Development Secretary M Shankar. Among the 98 allotments of prime land made to private organisations in the heart of New Delhi, this one makes a perfect case study. The land in question, 476 sq mt on Rouse Avenue, was allotted to Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. The one-man inquiry committee of former bureaucrat Yogesh Chandra—the UPA government ordered a probe into the allotments made during the NDA years after an extensive investigation by The Indian Express in 2002 showed how organisations affiliated to the RSS had cornered prime land in New Delhi—has found it was made in violation of all procedures and against the written advice of not one but two Secretaries of the Urban Development Ministry. The four-page dissent note, in fact, may have been one reason why M Shankar was shifted out of the Ministry after a brief stint. Ministry sources said that the ongoing probe has found that the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh was a ‘‘front’’ organisation of the RSS and that it was made the allotment—against recommendations of the Ministry’s top bureaucrats—because of ‘‘intervention’’ from the ‘‘highest level.’’ The interim report of the probe panel, to be submitted to Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in a week’s time, will summarise the nature of each of the 98 allotments — 55 of these went to socio-cultural organisations and 17 to religious organisations. In all, 225 allotments made by the Ministry between 1998-2004 were examined but a file-by-file examination was done only of the private allotments. The inquiry so far has found that in majority of the 98 allotments, the administrative machinery of the Ministry was completely bypassed and the system of allotments from 2001 to 2002 were made on the basis of recommendations of some Ministers. No attempt was made to check the antecedents of the allottee (normally done through the Ministry of Home Affairs), its balance sheet, its past performance and so on. Advice of the senior bureaucrats of the Ministry was ignored. Among the key findings of the Yogesh Chandra inquiry committee are: • While case-by-case examination of applications for allotments was a time-consuming process, some allotments were finalised in record time. For instance, in the case of land allotted to the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch in Rouse Avenue, the file was cleared in 11 days. Reason: the application was backed by recommendations of six Union Ministers. • In several cases, the size of the land allotted was increased subsequently to as much as five time the size of the original allotment. In other instances, land given to a allottee, say in Pushp Vihar, was subsequently changed to Rouse Avenue and regularised, again in violation of laid down norms. • In one case prime land was handed out on the advice of an Under Secretary of the Ministry of Culture. This was the plot given to the Keshav Samarak Kendra on Rajendra Prasad Road. The only comment on the file backing the allotment: the organisation has done ‘‘laudable’’ work. The inquiry committee is also likely to question the ‘‘judiciousness’’ of the Ministry to change land use in areas like Rouse Avenue from residential to institutional. According to Ministry sources, this was done despite the shortage of residential accommodation for VIPs in the Capital and without taking into consideration the absence of infrastructural facilities in the area. After the interim report, the Chandra Committee will submit a second report, making suggestions and recommendations on rules and regulations which need to be followed while allotting Government land in future.
