Chandigarh, January 24
The Haryana Government’s ambitious Mahatma Gandhi Grameen Basti Yojna promising free 100-yard residential plots to the below poverty line (BPL) families has apparently led to the mushrooming of “fake” BPL families in the state.

The government has so far identified over 1.7 lakh ineligible families in rural areas which got themselves enrolled as the beneficiaries against the rules. These families are under the scanner now for “misrepresentation” of facts with a view to avail benefits under the government’s welfare schemes.

Official sources admitted that lure of free plots led to spurt in the enrolment in the BPL categories. With official-politician nexus in the bogus BPL enrolment coming to the fore, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had recently ordered a fresh survey of the BPL beneficiaries, following which over 1.7 lakh ineligible families were detected.

While other benefits for the BPL families, including subsidised foodgrains and free medicare in government hospitals, were only considered to be fringe benefits, free 100-yard residential plots were a major attraction for even ineligible families to enrol under the BPL category, the sources informed.

Besides free plots, the government had offered to provide other infrastructural facilities on the land allotted to them as part of the housing scheme. With land prices in the areas adjoining cities and towns skyrocketing, a large number of the families, which did not fulfil the BPL criteria, also enrolled themselves as beneficiaries in the BPL category with a view to getting free plots.

“Criminal action can be initiated against the families enrolling as the BPL beneficiaries through suppression of facts,” a senior official said, adding that the ineligible families could themselves get their names deleted to avoid action against them. For this, they will have to approach respective additional deputy commissioners with a request to delete their names.

The sources said Hisar district has maximum number (20,446) of such families on the bogus BPL enrolment front, followed by Jind (16,987) and Sonepat (15,397). Minimum number of bogus BPL families are in Gurgaon district (1,293) followed by Rohtak (1,401) and Faridabad (1,519).

Other districts having bogus BPL families are Ambala (4,121), Fatehabad (7,727), Jhajjar (4,054), Kaithal (8,419), Karnal (11,796), Kurukshetra (7,828), Mahendragarh (1,570), Mewat (10,043), Palwal (9,311), Panchkula (7,103), Panipat (6,050), Rewari (11,412), Sirsa (5,052), Bhiwani (14,196) and Yamunanagar (2,951).

Chandigarh, January 24
The HJC-BJP alliance has decided to prepare a chargesheet against the Congress government in Haryana to expose its misdeeds.

Addressing a press conference after the first joint meeting of the district presidents of both parties, MP and HJC supremo Kuldip Bishnoi said the coordination committee of the alliance had decided to proceed against the government by preparing a chargesheet.

“We will constitute a joint committee of leaders of both parties for the purpose. This committee will study various projects which failed to benefit the state in any way. Also, it will gather details on the “favoured pockets” for jobs given during the Hooda regime and show the pattern in which money was spent in each of the 90 constituencies. The image the government projects is contrary to the truth and we will take this chargesheet down to people at the booth level and approach the Governor too,” Bishnoi claimed.

He added that an anti-corruption committee comprising leaders of the two parties would also be constituted to look into various scams during the tenure of this government.

Maintaining that he had first raised the issue of creation of a special economic zone in Gurgaon for which land of farmers was taken for a pittance, Bishnoi claimed that it was a virtual “sell-off” to benefit a particular group.

Stating that “land scams were most organised” in Haryana, the BJP in charge of Haryana, Harshvardhan, said both parties had successfully worked together in the recent byelections and a monitoring committee under former MLA Dharampal Malik had been constituted to give direction to the workers to take this alliance forward.

Terming the Congress government as “anti-poor”, Krishan Pal Gurjar, president of the state BJP, demanded that a fresh survey of BPL families be organised so that the “deserving cases” whose names have been left out, could be included again.

“The Congress government has cheated the OBCs by taking away their quota for Muslims,” Gurjar said.

Chandigarh, January 24
An Estate Officer and two other officials of the Haryana Urban Development Authority are in dock in a property matter as the Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed their petitions challenging the framing of charges against them.

Estate Officer Ramesh Kumar Vohra, Assistant Daya Rani and Superintendent Pitamber Parshotam were accused of fraudulently removing documents and Will for illegal transfer of a plot.

An industrial plot in Industrial Area Phase-1, Urban Estate, Panchkula, was initially allotted to Ved Parkash Kakria vide allotment letter dated October 8, 1973. He reportedly sold it to complainant Suresh Kumar Bajaj, son of Avinash Bajaj.

The allottee also executed a general power of attorney and Will in proposed vendee’s favour. Subsequently, Avinash Bajaj, attorney of the original allottee, wrote a letter dated October 30, 1991, requesting the Estate Officer to transfer the plot in the complainant’s name. He wrote another letter enclosing along with it the Will, the affidavit and the power of attorney. Instead of transferring the plot in complainant’s name, it was illegally transferred to one Anil Kumar Kakria on March 17, 1992. It was alleged that if the Will had not been removed and allowed to remain on the file, the plot could not have been illegally transferred.

A criminal case was registered against the accused on August 2, 1996, for allegedly committing offences punishable under Sections 201, 381, 409, 120-B and 420 of the IPC. The charges for commission of offences under Sections 420, 409 and 120-B of the IPC were framed against Ramesh Kumar Vohra, Daya Rani and Anil Kumar. But Pitamber Parshotam was discharged by the trial court.

Taking up the matter, Justice Mehinder Singh Sullar asserted: “In the present case, there is prima facie evidence to the effect that copy of the Will was attached with the application for transfer, but the same was missing from the file. The case of Pitamber Parshotam cannot be distinguished from that of Daya Rani and Ramesh Kumar Vohra because case of all the three is on the similar footing. Thus, the order of discharge of Pitamber Parshotam is erroneous, illegal and improper."

Sirsa, January 24
Man Singh Baroliya, who with his two brothers Mahinder Kumar and Ganga Singh, eke out his living by making Punjabi juttis and shoes at his shop in the Main Bazar of Rania town in Sirsa, owes his business much to the loan provided by the Haryana Schedule Caste Finance and Development Corporation a few years ago.

With a loan of Rs 50,000 each, he and his two brothers received from the corporation, the trio have been able to make a decent living for them and their families. The three brothers have already paid off their loans.

“Together, the three of us make 10 to 12 juttis in a day, while our wives help us in “tilla work” (embroidery),” said Man Singh.

Last year, Man Singh and his brothers displayed their juttis at a stall in the Haryana pavilion of the Trade Fair in Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, where their products received appreciation from several visitors.

Similarly, Raj Kumar from Sirsa, who took a loan of Rs 30,000 from the corporation three years ago for making juttis, has now switched over his profession after repaying his debt.

“The loan proved very helpful at a time when I was in dire need of funds. Now, I have changed my business and started assembling reverse osmosis water purifier systems, because juttis are not in demand anymore,” Raj Kumar said.

The Haryana Schedule Caste Finance and Development Corporation had so far provided loans worth Rs 1,793.73 lakh to as many as 6,415 families in Sirsa district in the past six years, said Deputy Commissioner J Ganeshan here today.

The corporation also provided Rs 470.23 lakh as subsidy to these debtors, he said.

Ganeshan said in the current financial year 2011-2012, as many as 589 families had taken benefits of loans from the corporation.

Chandigarh, January 24
The Haryana Government today transferred three IPS and three HPS officers with immediate effect.

PR Deo, IGP, RTC, Bhondsi, and Sudhir Chowdhary, IG, South Range, will swap their places of posting. Maheshwar Dayal, DCP, West Gurgaon, becomes DCP, East Gurgaon. Abhay Singh, SP, Crime, Gurgaon, goes as DCP, West Gurgaon. Parveen Kumar Mehta, Additional Superintendent of Police, Hisar, has been posted as DCP(Rural), Ambala. Sukhbir Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police, Narnaul, will be Commandant, 4th Battalion, HAP, Madhuban.

Chandigarh, January 24
The split in the Haryana unit of the Akhil Bhartiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (ABJASS) nothwithstanding, the organization’s agitation plans in February to press for OBC status for Jats remain unaltered.

However, before the “national” agitation gets under way, its leaders have decided to campaign in poll-bound states of UP and Punjab against the Congress.

“We are going to focus on 20 seats of Punjab where Jat Sikhs are the dominant community with the active support of the Punjab unit. Our one-point agenda is to canvass against the Congress which has betrayed us. While I campaigned in Ferozepur and Bathinda for two days, our teamhas been in Punjab since January 21. In UP, we have decided that we will campaign against the Congress in 120 seats with a substantial number of Jat voters. Besides members of our own community, we will ‘educate’ the Muslims, as also other OBCs, about how the Congress is fooling them about quotas,” says the national president of the samiti, Yashpal Malik, who was “removed” from his post by a breakaway group last month.

Maintaining that the Haryana unit will be the first to hit the agitational path if the government fails to give any substantial “assurance” before the expiry of the February 19 deadline, Malik says meetings to muster support for the reservation cause are already under way in the Jat belt of the state. “The unit will go ahead with its agitation plan because the Jats don’t have reservation even at the state level in Haryana.