Chandigarh admn silent on Centre’s queries amid bureaucratic red tape: MP Manish Tewari

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

“After a lot of follow-up with the Union Home Minister and constantly raising these issues in the 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 letters.

The senior Congress leader said, “I do hope the Chandigarh 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, which was marked as a reminder, MHA Under Secretary Prabhat Nigam referred to the Ministry’s letter dated July 22 and MP Tewari’s representation dated July 8 on the major issues of the Chandigarh 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 of the Chandigarh Administration,” the MHA Under Secretary wrote to the UT Chief Secretary on August 4.

The issues listed in the MHA communication, on which the UT 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 Chandigarh Administration; ownership rights to people who are living in various resettlement colonies across Chandigarh; extension of lal dora (red line) with regard to the 22 villages in Chandigarh that have been brought under the purview of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation; 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 housing societies and cooperative housing societies that have been pending for a decade or more. The issues listed in the MHA communication, on which the UT 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 Chandigarh Administration; ownership rights to people who are living in various resettlement colonies across Chandigarh; extension of lal dora (red line) with regard to the 22 villages in Chandigarh that have been brought under the purview of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation; need-based changes with regard to the residential dwellings built by Chandigarh Housing Board, which need to be regularised and compounded; and multiple issues with regard to various group housing societies 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,” MHA asked the UT Chief Secretary.

Repeated attempts to connect with Chief Secretary Rajeev Verma remained futile.