CHB meeting to take up key issues today

After nearly 20 months, the Board of Directors of the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) will take up key issues in its meeting scheduled to be held tomorrow.

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The major pending issues include the regularisation of need-based changes, a one-time relief for the owners who failed to pay rent, and the revival of the Sector 53 housing scheme, which was scrapped by former Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit.

Earlier, the meeting was scheduled for January 31, then February 12, but was postponed.

It will be chaired by UT Chief Secretary Rajeev Verma, who is also the board chairman. In October last year, UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria reconstituted the board for a period of three years.

The official board members include the CHB?chief executive officer (CEO), the UT Finance Secretary, the Estate Officer, the Chief Architect and the Chief Engineer, while the non-official members are BJP leader and former councillor Shakti Prakash Devshali, retired PCS?officer Balbir Singh Dhol and city-based architect Vinod Joshi.

Although the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had in July last year refused to allow need-based changes in the CHB dwelling units on the pattern of Delhi, the board members will still take up the matter in the meeting.

In December 2023, former UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit stated that the authorities were reconsidering need-based changes for around 68,000 CHB flats and would frame a policy accordingly, but no progress was made. At present, over 55,000 flats have various types of violations, including additional rooms and toilets, conversion of balconies into rooms, covering of courtyards and stairs on government land.

The board members will also seek a one-time relief for allottees of the Small Flats Scheme who have not paid their dues for several years and are facing the cancellation of their allotment.

The members will raise the issue of Small Flats Scheme allottees and urge the board to provide them with a one-time relief so that they can pay their dues.

The revival of the Sector 53 housing scheme is another key agenda item. In August 2023, former UT Administrator Purohit had put CHB’s ambitious Sector 53 General Housing Scheme on hold, calling it unnecessary. Consequently, CHB cancelled the Rs 200-crore tenders floated on August 2, 2023 for constructing 372 flats on nine acres. However, hopes for the scheme’s revival were rekindled in November 2024 when Kataria directed CHB to submit an updated proposal.