M A I N   N E W S

GMADA ‘loses’ ` 116 cr
While the boss was away, dues of a promoter reduced from
` 121 cr to ` 5 cr in a day
Chitleen K Sethi
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 23
In a major embarrassment to Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA), a housing project promoter managed to get the dues, he owed GMADA, reduced from Rs 121 crore to a meagre Rs five crore in a single day.

While all this happened in absence of GMADA chief Vivek Pratap Singh, who was away for election duty to Andhra Pradesh, the Chief Administrator, Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA), Sarvjit Singh, who was holding the additional charge of GMADA, was not even shown the file.

The case was cleared at the level of Additional Chief Administrator (ACA), GMADA, Balwinder Multani, who according to Vivek Pratap, probably signed the file along with several other files as “routine”.

In a damage control mode, the GMADA has now suspended the accounts officer, who generated the fresh demand notice, and recommended disciplinary action against the district town planner, who had moved the case.

Builder Kulwant Singh, who owns the company- Janta Land Promoters Limited (JLPL), had set up an industrial park in Mohali under the mega-project scheme. GMADA had raised a demand of Rs 121 crore from the promoter in 2008 on account of external development charges (EDC) and change of land use (CLU) charges.

However, JLPL moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court contesting the demand on the grounds that he had been exempted from the payment of these dues by the government.

In June this year, the government issued a notification slashing the EDC and CLU rates and on July 26, JLPL moved an application in GMADA requesting the authority to re-calculate their dues on the basis of the new notification. On July 30, the fresh demand notice of approximately Rs five crore was prepared, submitted for approval of the ACA and cleared by the ACA. Almost Rs three crore of the dues were paid by the builder on the same day.

Sources added that the fresh calculations done by GMADA in JLPL’s case, wherein it slashed the dues, were wrong, also because these were not based on the notification issued by the government in July, but on the basis of a notification issued by the government in 2005!

The sources added that though over 20 similar cases of other builders were also cleared that day, since JLPL’s case was pending in the high court, any decision regarding the reduction of its dues should have been approved by the higher authorities. But his case was also cleared along with the other cases.

The case, the sources added, was cleared despite the DTP having written on the file that a case related to the builder was pending in the court and the change in dues was subject to the high court’s decision.

Vivek Pratap came to know about the incident only in August when he returned from election duty. Though he revoked the no dues certificate as well as the demand notice, the damage had already been done. JLPL had, in the meantime, moved the high court showing that it had paid its dues to GMADA.

In order to counter the move, Principal Secretary, Urban Housing and Development, Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu has, this week, submitted an affidavit to the high court stating that a fresh demand notice was issued to JLPL without the approval of the CA, GMADA and had been consequently revoked.

Kulwant Singh, on the other hand, claimed he was being victimised by GMADA. “July 30 was the last date for submission of the dues and 23 other cases were also cleared. The government has revoked only my demand order. This is not fair,” he added.