Punjab VB seeks plot records, more trouble for PSIEC officials

Tribune News Service

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, January 8

More trouble for Punjab State Industrial Export Corporation (PSIEC) officials is in the offing.

Close on the heels of registering a criminal case against PSIEC officials for the alleged wrong bifurcation of a 25-acre industrial plot for setting up a Gulmohar township in Mohali, the Punjab Vigilance has sought a record of all industrial plots where bifurcation had been allowed.

There are over 100 cases in which the corporation has allowed bifurcation under its 2005 policy. The maximum number of bifurcations have been allowed in Mohali.

VB officials claim that the policy on the bifurcation of plots were not followed. They point out that a 2004 policy specified that bifurcation could be allowed only in case of family dispute, death of an allottee and sub-division among the heirs and financial constraint of the allottee. A subsequent amendment was done to the bifurcation policy in 2005.

The PSIEC officials, in their communication to the VB, has quoted a 2018 notification of the Housing and Urban Development Department which says that the bifurcation of industrial plots had been exempted from the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995. The bifurcation of industrial plots is permitted only in two units and the minimum area of the bifurcation of industrial plot will not be less than one acre.

As Vigilance is also separately probing the alleged multi-crore industrial plot allotment scam in industrial estates, more officials of the PSIEC could face action. In the case, the agency is also probing the missing official document wherein then CM Capt Amarinder Singh had in 2019 ordered the formation of a three-member committee to probe the complicity of the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC).

In the document, the former CM had sought to examine findings of the VB that had asked for the permission from the PSIEC MD to book six corporation officials for their alleged role in the allotment of industrial plots to their kin and acquaintances.

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