Chandigarh, December 27
Property details furnished in returns by IAS officers are not merely a plain boring list of sale and purchase of various properties.

The most “touching” detail in the 600 pages of information gathered under the RTI Act by advocate HC Arora is the buying of a house in Sector 19, Chandigarh, by KBS Sidhu in the name of his wife. The house has been bought for “sentimental” reasons and her contribution to the whole deal, worth Rs 50 lakh, was less than Rs 101.

Sumer Singh Gurjar, former Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana, also has an interesting story to tell. In June, 2004, he purchased some land in Rajasthan, which is now valued at Rs 3 lakh, from which his annual income is Rs 2 lakh. He bought some land in Ludhiana from which his annual income is just Rs 5,000. For purchasing these two pieces of land, the money had come as “gifts from family members and close relatives”, sources said.

Several officers, including C Roul, Anurag Verma, KAP Sinha, Vikas Garg, Sameer Kumar, Rakesh Singh, Romila Dubey and Alwyn Didar Singh have acquired plots and flats as members of more than one group-housing society and, in many cases, in the same area of the tri-city.

The Pink Rose Cooperative Society, Chandigarh, the Nav Sansad Vihar Cooperative Group Housing Society, the Dwarka New Delhi, the Priya Cooperative Group Housing Society, Dwarka, New Delhi, the Alpine Sehkari Awas Samiti, Greater Noida, the Green Woods Government Officers Society, Noida, the Government Officers Cooperative House Building Society, Panchkula, the National Cooperative House Building Society village Nadah (Mohali), the Akash Cooperative House Building Society, Mohali, Disha Cooperative House Building Society, Panchkula, the Sarva Priya Cooperative Housing Society, New Delhi, and the Kirti Cooperative Group Housing Society, New Delhi, are some of the places where many Punjab IAS officers or their family members have their homes.

(Concluded)