Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of India, are staggered to learn that a large number of public premises are allowed to be exploited for personal use by non-entitled occupants. These public premises are raised and maintained out of public money with an aim to accommodate entitled Government officials. It is hard earned money of the tax payers and the Government agencies responsible for management of these public assets remain accountable for their use/misuse by entitled/non entitled occupants. A critical survey of these assets pan India sends an impression that most of them are occupied by high officials and public representatives such as Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assemblies of the States and UTs. There are instances of prolonged occupancy beyond decades. This highlights the sheer negligence of duty by the concerned authorities or inability on their part to implement Government orders to avoid earning annoyance of these influential occupants. It reflects weakness of the system that allows such malicious exploitation of the public premises by highly placed citizens of country who had held dignified positions in the same system. Responsibility of allowing such largescale mismanagement of national assets created out of tax payers money runs till highest authority of the Union Government of India.
Keeping the scope of this write up limited to our home, let us analyze the issue with reference to the latest formed Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The total strength of Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council of erstwhile state of J&K was 85 and 36 respectively. The dissolution of Legislative Assembly by then Governor of the state on 21 Nov 2018 and implementation of Reorganization Act 2019 wef 31 Oct 2019 ceased the membership of these elected members of Legislative Assembly and Council rendering them, in principle, ineligible for any Government accommodation thereon unless permission in specific is granted by the competent Authority. It is noted with utter dismay that most of these former public representatives are occupying allotted public premises even on date, in some case at two capital cities, illegally. This unauthorized occupancy of public premises apparently continues with the connivance of concerned Government authorities of Estate department of Government of Union Territory of JK causing irreparable loss to public exchequer and at the cost of tax payers’ money. These former public representatives belong to entire political spectrum of the state (now UT). There may be other high Government officials defaulting on this count with the blessing of the people of authority who matter. We are not much disturbed with mere unauthorized occupancy of these premises but do regret the fragility of rules and regulations that are twisted for personal gains by these powerful members of our society who actually gain this strength in democracy through poor voters for larger welfare of the state. We have been convinced time and again by prominent leaders of ruling political party of India that abrogation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution and Reorganization of the state of Jammu and Kashmir would enable them to establish Rule of Law with zero tolerance for corruption and this argument was put forth in the Union Parliament by our Home Minister while seeking approval of the House for these legislations. There is wide gap between preach and practice that affects the morale of the commoners.
We have been expecting that the new administration of Union Territory of JK will proactively initiate action to arrest misuse of these premises by declaring non entitled occupants as unauthorized and notify them to vacate government bungalows and houses within stipulated time as per rules in vogue. It is really a matter of public concern that no such orders have been passed by Estate Department of the Union Territory and published in Media the details of defaulters involved in blatant exploitation of public premises despite issuance of vacation orders for such unauthorized occupancy. It conveys a tacit approval of the concerned officials of the administration for reasons well known to them. We expected senior leaders of the ruling combine i.e. BJP and PDP to set examples for others and advise their cadre to follow the suit.
We, therefore, seek urgent intervention of Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory to order an independent Inquiry to pinpoint defaulters both unauthorized occupants and responsible officials to dispense justice to tax payers besides restoring faith in neat and clean administration of the Union Territory. It is right opportunity to clean the system as no political interference from any quarter shall influence the required course of action. Zero tolerance to corruption and Rule of Law shall be encouraged to prevail in the larger interest of the UT. We are sure our request would be acceded to by Honorable Lieutenant Governor. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
The author is WgCdr (Retd)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel