LA Sectt, Estates Deptt passing bucks on each other
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 2: Though the Government has identified 62 Legislators who are in the possession of more than one official accommodation in blatant violation of rules yet no step has so far been initiated to get the same vacated to avoid undue burden on the State exchequer. This has been viewed seriously by the Jammu and Kashmir State Accountability Commission, which has conveyed concern to the Chief Secretary especially in the light of passing of bucks by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat and Estates Department on each other.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its report tabled in the State Legislature on June 29, 2016 had pointed out that Estates Department had made avoidable extra expenditure of nearly Rs 33 crore due to non-adherence to norms and large number of Legislators had been allotted Government accommodation despite occupying flats in the MLAs’ Hostel in both the capital cities.
The J&K State Accountability Commission took suo-moto cognizance of these revelations of the supreme audit institution of the country and vide order dated March 8, 2017 directed Director of Estates Department to furnish information regarding MLAs/MLCs occupying Estates houses at Jammu and Srinagar while retaining possession of rooms in MLAs hostels in both the capital cities.
Accordingly, Director Estates in consultation with Deputy Secretary of the Legislative Assembly furnished a list of 44 MLAs and 18 MLCs, who are currently in occupation of official accommodation at Srinagar and Jammu and holding rooms in MLAs hostels of Jammu and Srinagar also.
After going through the reply furnished by the Director Estates, the Accountability Commission vide order dated May 30, 2017 asked the Chief Secretary to take the corrective steps by or before July 26 with intimation to the Commission.
However, when the matter again came up for hearing before Full Commission comprising of Justice B A Khan (Chairperson) and Justice J P Singh and Justice B A Kirmani (Members) some days back, the Commission was conveyed by the officers representing Estates Department and Legislative Assembly Secretariat that a high-powered committee has been constituted to look into the issue.
While expressing concern over the dilly-dallying approach in getting the additional accommodations vacated from the Legislators the Accountability Commission sought to know the recommendations made or to be made by the committee before next date of hearing. The Commission once again conveyed the concern over the issue to the Chief Secretary, sources said.
“It is a matter of concern that despite identifying 62 Legislators who are enjoying multiple accommodations the Government is soft-paddling on taking corrective steps. Moreover, the dilly-dallying approach is notwithstanding the fact that annually the Government is paying huge amount by way of rent for private houses acquired to accommodate entitled persons putting unnecessary burden on exchequer”, sources regretted.
They further said, “the Government has the clear option of explicitly telling these 62 Legislators to choose only one of the accommodations in their possession and vacant the others but this option has not been explored till date for unknown reasons”, adding “moreover, when the issue has come in the public domain it becomes the moral responsibility of these Legislators to voluntarily opt for retaining only one accommodation and surrendering the other ones to act as role models of austere living”.
“By not voluntarily coming forward to surrender the additional accommodations these Legislators have explicitly conveyed to everyone that they are more concerned about themselves than the exchequer of the State”, sources further regretted.
Moreover, confusion is prevailing over the stand taken by the Estates Department and Legislative Assembly Secretariat before the SAC few days back on the framing of high-powered committee. “We are going to constitute high-powered committee within next some days”, said an officer of Estates Department when contacted, adding “Legislative Assembly Secretariat may have constituted a committee of its own”.
However, an officer of Legislative Assembly Secretariat said: “Our role was only to furnish information about the occupation in MLAs’ hostels to Estates Department and we have done the same”, adding “only Estates Department is supposed to take steps as per the directions of the Accountability Commission”.
All this clearly indicates that Legislative Assembly Secretariat and Estates Department are only passing bucks on each other instead of working in unison to ensure strict compliance to the rules by the Legislators.
It is pertinent to mention here that most of these 62 Legislators have held either 2+2 accommodation at Srinagar and Jammu while others held 2+1 being only a step behind their other colleagues.
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