Sector 45 ignored as Rs 40 lakh spent on Burail village, HC told

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 13

The diversion of development funds by city politicians to villages has been a matter of guess and surmise since long. However, a petition filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court alleges on the basis of information received under the Right to Information Act that at least in one part of the city the area councillor totally diverted the funds to a village, while ignoring the development of a sector.  

In its petition, the Sector 45-A Residents Welfare Federation has asserted that information supplied under the RTI Act on utilisation of funds in Ward No. 14 indicates that the area councillor “totally diverted/utilised the funds in Burail village and hardly spent any money on the development of the sector”.

The petitioner further submitted that the entire budget of Rs 40 lakh from the “councillor fund” in 2015 was utilised on Burail village. “It, therefore, deprived sector residents of equal utilisation of the fund, thus discriminating against them,” counsel Ashok Sharma Nabhewala said.

Giving details, Nabhewala asserted that Ward No. 14 included Burail village and Sector 45. The density of population was extremely high. Due to the removal of Colony No. 5, a large number of people started residing in Burail village following which Sector residents were ignored. 

“Keeping in view the population base as the object of delimitation, one single ward can be independently created for Burail village,” Nabhewala said, while seeking directions to the Chandigarh Administration and other respondents to delimit Ward No. 14. Going into the technicalities, he said the Municipal Corporation passed the “Municipal Corporation Order -- 1995” for delimitation of wards. Section 8 says the powers to create or delimit the wards lies with the UT Administrator.

A representation was submitted by residents of Sector 45 A, B, C and D for the creation of a new ward and its separation from Ward No. 14. The Secretary, Local Government, sought the comments of the area councillor. Belonging to Burail village and “having vested interests because of a large number of unauthorised guest houses”, he did not support the “cause of residents”.

In June 2011, the Administrator held a meeting for delimitation of wards due to a rise in the population, “but no finality could take place”.  He added that during the last elections, the number of votes in Ward No. 14 was 25,416. The figure was above 20,000, for which a separate ward was needed to be created.