Centre’s repeated missives on Chandigarh MP’s letter fail to elicit UT Admn response

In what appears to be a case of bureaucratic red tape, repeated missives from the Centre have failed to elicit response from the Chandigarh Administration’s top officials. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had shot two letters in less than a fortnight to the UT Chief Secretary, seeking reply on the issues flagged by MP Manish Tewari in his representation.

“After a lot of follow up with the Union Home Minister and constantly raising these issues in Parliament over the past 14 months, I am happy to note that the Union Home Ministry has officially asked the Chief Secretary of the Chandigarh Administration to respond to the issues that I have been raising by explicitly referring to the letters that I have been writing,” Tewari said while sharing the MHA’s missives.

The senior Congress leader said, “I do hope that the Administration responds positively with solutions to these problems and not why it cannot be done. Interestingly, the MHA’s letter of August 4 says reminder…this obviously means an earlier letter by the Union Home Ministry was not responded to by the Chandigarh Administration,” Tewari, who is also a former Union Minister, added.

In its letter dated August 4, MHA Under Secretary Prabhat Nigam referred to the ministry’s letter dated July 22 and Tewari’s representation dated July 8 on some major issues of the Administration.

“In this connection, it is informed that the requisite information is still awaited. Therefore, it is again requested to furnish the comments on the following major issues,” the MHA Under Secretary wrote to the UT Chief Secretary on August 4.

The issues listed in the MHA communication, on which the Administration’s response has been sought included share-wise sale of property, which stands prohibited as a consequence of the order and judgment of the Supreme Court and its interpretation by the Administration, ownership rights to people who are living in various resettlement colonies across Chandigarh, extension of ‘lal dora’ with regard to the 22 villages in Chandigarh that have been brought under the purview of the MC, need-based changes with regard to the residential dwellings built by the Chandigarh Housing Board, which need to be regularised and compounded, and multiple issues with regard to various group and cooperative housing societies that have been pending for a decade or more.

“This may be treated as urgent and the requisite information may be furnished by August 5 positively,” the MHA had asked the UT Chief Secretary. Meanwhile, repeated attempts to contact Chief Secretary Rajeev Verma remained futile.