No action over missing civic body documents

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 14

Even an year after the reports about missing documents of leased properties surfaced, the Municipal Corporation (MC) has failed to identify guilty officials. No action has been taken in this regard.

In May 2018, Senior Deputy Mayor Raman Bakshi had raised the alarm as more than 100 documents of prominent properties worth crores of rupees had been missing from the MC records. He claimed that the documents had been misplaced during the 10-year BJP-SAD tenure in the state.

Estate Officer Sushant Bhatia, who had initiated the drive to relocate the leased properties, had found that the lease agreements had been missing.

Senior Deputy Mayor Raman Bakshi said, “The MC House had constituted a committee last year. Even after five months, the committee hasn’’t submitted its report. The properties are worth crores of rupees which are permanently occupied by lease holders in the absence of documents. It was a big lapse on the part of the property wing and the former House. Action should be taken against the officials concerned.”

According to information, there are 174 leased properties on record. The lease of many properties has expired. Now, the agreements of 62 are not available. To collect the lease agreements, the estate office had issued eviction notices to all the lease property holders. A few of them came with affidavits while others moved the court.

Estate officials were aware about the missing documents even before 2010, but no one bothered. Now, the estate wing has filed a complaint with the Ranjit Avenue police, but no FIR has been lodged till date. Raman Bakshi said, “I have raised the issue in the MC House for action. I am the only one who is following up the matter.”