Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal on Thursday said that the State Government has not renewed the licence for a commercial colony on the controversial land, sold by Robert Vadra owned Skylight Hospitality to DLF.
Responding to a question on the issue, the Chief Minister said that as the license of Skylight Hospitality Company has not been renewed, it deems to have lapsed.
The Chief Minister was talking to the mediapersons here. Recently, Haryana Police had booked UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for alleged irregularities over the controversial land deal in Gurugram.
According to the FIR, Robert Vadra's firm Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd purchased 3.5 acre of land in Gurugram's Sector 83 from Onkareshwar Properties for Rs 7.50 crore in 2008, when Hooda was the Chief Minister and also held the portfolio of the Town and County Planning Department.
Later, Skylight Hospitality sold this land to DLF at a price of Rs 58 crore, after procuring a commercial licence for the development of the colony with the influence of Hooda.
Taking a dig at the Congress over registration of cases in land scams in the state, Manohar Lal said that the present State Government has taken effective steps for keeping a check on corruption in change of land use (CLU) cases which was prevailing in the previous government.
“The State Government has prepared a new Policy on November 10, 2017 under which applications are invited from the applicants and license and CLU is given through open auction and too in limited numbers,” he said.
He said that there was rampant corruption in issuance of CLU during the previous government.
The previous Chief Minister had taken away all the powers to issue CLU and license of colonies which were vested with Director, Town and Country Planning Department. But we have not only scrapped such orders but also given back the powers to the Director Town and Country Planning,” he said.
On being asked about the non-payment of pending dues by Kingdom of Dreams (KoD,) Gurugram, the Chief Minister said that notice has been issued to the KoD for the payment of earlier dues. "We have given time to KoD and if it still fails to make the outstanding payment, action would be taken accordingly, he said.
About recovery of External Development Charges (EDC), he said that more than Rs 13000 cr was pending when we came to power in 2014. Till now, we have recovered around Rs 6512 crore and also framing a policy to recover the rest of EDC, he said.
Replying to a question related to pending land compensation or liabilities related to farmers, Manohar Lal said that in 2014, around Rs 20500 cr was pending with around Rs 10000 cr enhancement amount. We have given the entire compensation and now enhancement amount is pending which has now increased to over RS 14000 cr, he added.
On CM’s announcements related to the Department, he said that 73 announcements were made out of which 39 have been implemented and rest are in process.
When asked whether decision related to policy changes in HUDA are taken at cabinet level, the Chief Minister said that HUDA is an autonomous body with a Board chaired by me. There is no need to take cabinet approval in decisions related to policies, he added.
On the issue of development of unauthorised colonies and make available affordable plots to people, he said that the government would grant licenses for construction of affordable houses on 5 to 15 acres of land under Deep Dayal Jan Awas Yojana.
The Chief Minister said that 1,534 licenses were granted in the tenure of previous government, of which maximum were granted after 2002. However, the present State Government has, during last four years, given 175 licenses including 107 licenses for colonies falling under Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojana and 68 other licenses, he added.
In reply to a question related to KMP Expressway, the Chief Minister said that a separate authority will be constituted for it.
