UT bureaucrats ‘not so rich’

Nitin Jain

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 17

An average family in Chandigarh is considered to have a higher purchasing power than an average family in Mumbai, but IAS and IPS officers posted in the UT Administration are “not so rich”.

While a majority of the 16 IAS and seven IPS officers serving on deputation in Chandigarh are not even crorepatis, Chandigarh Housing Board Chairman Maninder Singh, the second seniormost IAS officer in the UT, is the lone bureaucrat who does not have a single property in his name.

Then there are a couple of officers who have not yet declared their wealth while others own a single plot in the Punjab IAS-PCS Officers Cooperative House Building Society at Shingariwala village in Mohali.

This has been disclosed in the annual immovable property returns for 2015 filed by them. The list of properties filed by most bureaucrats and police officers in their returns includes ancestral properties inherited even before joining the civil and police service.

UT SDM (East) Tapasya Raghav, one of the youngest officers in the city, has the highest number of six properties in Jaipur and Delhi, which she owns jointly with her husband and in-laws, while Home Secretary Anurag Agarwal owns four properties, including two plots and a flat in Gurgaon, besides a 500 sq yard plot in Shingariwala. One of his properties has been gifted to him by his father.

While Raghav has pegged her total worth at less than Rs 3 crore, Agarwal has not determined his net worth.

The top babu of the UT, Adviser Parimal Rai, has declared three properties, including a 500 sq yard plot in Greater Noida and two flats, measuring 512 and 550 sq yards each, in New Delhi, the present value of which has been estimated by him at a little over Rs 2 crore, while the UT top cop, IGP Tajender Singh Luthra, owns only a 500 sq yard plot in Greater Noida, the present value of which has not been determined by him.

UT Finance Secretary Sarvjit Singh, Special Secretary (Finance) Bhawna Garg, MC Commissioner B Purushartha, Deputy Commissioner Ajit Balaji Joshi, CITCO Managing Director Kavita Singh, Secretary of the House Allotment Committee (Upper) SB Deepak Kumar, Secretary, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Adapa Karthik, Director, Higher Education, Jitender Yadav, SDM (Central) Prince Dhawan and SDM (South) Kriti Garg have single or two properties each in their names.

Among them, Kavita Singh has stated that she had taken a membership of the Punjab Officers Cooperative House Building Society, but till date the possession has not been given.

Among the IPS officers, UT DIG Amarjeet Singh Cheema has declared the maximum of five properties — three in Punjab and one  each in Chandigarh and Panchkula. While he has put the total worth of his four properties at less than Rs 4 crore, the present value of 33 kanal and 14 marla agricultural land, which is under the Sutlej since 1975 and three-fourths of which is owned by him, is not assessable.

Ram Nivas Meena, Commandant, IRB, also owns five properties — four in Rajasthan and one in Greater Noida. However, the present value of these, he claims, is just around Rs 11 lakh.

UT SSP (Traffic) Maneesh Chaudhry owns four properties — two in Gurgaon and one each in Rangpuri village in New Delhi and Faridabad. Without ascertaining their present value, he has disclosed an investment of less than Rs 1 crore on these immovable assets.

While UT SSP Sukhchain Singh Gill and ASP Guriqbal Singh own two properties each in joint names with their brother and father, respectively, another ASP Navdeep Singh Brar has declared, “I am a member of Hindu undivided family. The property is not yet inherited. I will intimate once I get my share.”