Roshni biggest land scam in J&K: PAG State lost Rs 25000 crore ABHINAV VERMA SmallerDefaultLargerJammu, Mar 8: Principal Accountant General (PAG), SC Pandey, Saturday said that Roshini scheme involves the biggest ever land scam in Jammu and Kashmir, with the State losing about Rs 25000 crore.“The scheme turned out to be a total flop as against the expected Rs 25000 crore revenue, the government has recovered less than Rs 100 crore so far,” Pandey told reporters at a press meet here.“I don’t know the history but it is the biggest scam and the facts speak themselves,” Pandey said adding that the projected revenue estimates were made in Nov 2006 against Rs 20 lakh Kanal land identified for vesting ownership rights, but these were never realised.Pandey said that the rules framed by the government under which, agriculture land was to be transferred free of cost, were against the Act.“As per the Act the revenue generated from the scheme was to be used for developing power projects, while the government rules subverted its provisions by exempting any charges on the agriculture land at the time of vesting of ownership rights to the claimants, hitting the revenue generation,” he said.He said that even in case of non-agriculture land the revenue targets could not be met as in majority of cases the beneficiaries were given rebate in the set price.“We have audited around 547 cases for 666 Kanal of non-agriculture land. It was found that in most of the cases the committees had given rebate against the fixed prices in the name of educational trusts and many other planks.”He said that the Revenue Department informed PAG that it has identified 3.5 lakh Kanal land for allotting to the beneficiaries for which the department will recover Rs 355 crore but only Rs 76 crore has been recovered so far.He said that the amendment made in the Act in 2004, deleting the clause restricting the ownership rights only for the land in possession since 1990, gave leverage to many people to encroach land and get ownership rights for the same.According to the government figures in Nov 2006, there was about 20 lakh Kanal State land in the possession of encroachers, valuing about Rs 25500 crore and the government is still relying on these figures despite the fact that much more land was encroached after the 2004 amendment.Terming the entire implementation of the scheme plagued with loopholes, PAG questioned the allotment of land to 6 trusts including Nawai Subah Trust of National Conference and Khidmat Trust of Congress party.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 04:01:46 +0000
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