Chandigarh, November 22
It’s not just the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Partap Singh Bajwa who is in trouble for his land deals. The state government is initiating action against Chief Parliamentary Secretary NK Sharma, who is also SAD treasurer, for his failure to get environment clearance for his realty projects at Zirakpur.

The Punjab Pollution Control Board has asked its officers to initiate legal proceedings against him under various sections of the Environment Protection Act, for going ahead with a housing project (Savitry Greens II) at Ghazipur village, without getting NOCs under the Water Pollution Act and the Air Pollution Act.

The letter, dated November 15, directs the environmental engineer, Punjab Pollution Control Board, regional office, Mohali, to treat this as the most urgent and file a complaint against the project proponent and send an action-taken report. In spite of repeated attempts to contact Sharma on his mobile, he did not respond. This information has been obtained from the state’s department of Science Technology and Environment by former Congress MLA and party spokesman Sukhpal Khaira under the RTI Act.

Khaira and Sharma have been at loggerheads for over a month now, with each one digging material against the other.

It is as part of this feud that the Akalis roped in PPCC president Partap Singh Bajwa and his family members for their alleged shady land deals. Releasing the fresh set of documents against Sharma today, Khaira said in eight of the residential/commercial projects being developed by Sharma’s real estate company, construction had been on at full swing even as the company failed to get environment clearances.

Being a Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Sharma enjoyed political patronage, Khaira said. “What else will explain his disregard for the law, other than the fact that he boasts of his proximity to the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister to circumvent the law. It is quite possible that his projects are being funded by the Deputy Chief Minister, or he has some financial arrangement with the Badals,” he said.