By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: Isn’t allotment of land to sons and daughters of ministers and sitting legislators for business purposes immoral? Isn’t it immoral to allot land to sitting ruling party MLA to open a factory? It may be somewhere, but not in Bihar of ‘clean’ Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Nitish on Monday gave clean chit to Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) which allotted huge plots to at least eight close relatives, including a JDU (Nitish’s party) MLA, of ministers, MPs and MLCs of JDU-BJP alliance besides top government officers.
Bihar Chief Secretary Anup Mukherji in his probe report made public on Monday has said the allotments have been made in strict adherence of the law and rules of BIADA. While admitting the beneficiaries included close relatives of ministers and other NDA leaders Mukherji in the report said there was nothing wrong in it. Mukherji submitted the report to CM Nitish on Sunday and the CM made it public on the Bihar government website on Monday.
The boundary wall of 33 acres of land given to BJP MLC Ashok Agarwal’s son in Forbesganj
On 18th of July, it was disclosed by media that BIADA has allotted huge plots to sons and daughters of several ministers, MLAs, MPs, MLCs and officers. The Opposition demanded resignation of Nitish and a probe by CBI. Succumbing to pressure, Nitish ordered a probe by Bihar chief secretary.
The points of reference for the chief secretary were as follows:
• If the relatives of the ministers and bureaucrats whose names have appeared as beneficiaries in the newspapers and news channels have actually been allotted BIADA plots
• If the said persons holding high position had played any role in the allotment, and
• If stipulated norms had been violated in the process of making the allotments to the allottees in question.
The chief secretary report confirmed that relatives of several ministers and bureaucrats are the beneficiaries of the BIADA plots. But it also said that people in position of power did not play any role in the allotment, and plots were allotted in accordance with the BIADA norms and appropriate processes. The report also said that no irregularities have been found in the allotment of the BIADA plots to any of the persons in question.
The beneficiaries included:
Urvashi Shahi, daughter of Human Resource Development Minister P.K. Shahi
Rahul Kumar, JDU MLA (Ghosi constituency) and son of JDU MP Jagdish Sharma
Rahmat Fatma Amanullah, daughter of Social Welfare Minister Parveen Amanullah and IAS officer Afzal Amanullah
Ravi Ranjan, son-in-law of BJP MLC Awadhesh Narayan Singh
Saurabh Agarwal, son of BJP MLC Ashok Kumar Agarwal
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