While most got nothing, a few have got five or six KHB sites
Lakhs of citizens apply for
While thousands of people wait for several years and many rounds of lottery draws, a few of them have got three, four, five, six and seven plots allotted in their names. The revelation comes from the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) in its report on the performance audit of acquisition and development of land and allotment of sites/houses/flats by KHB during five years beginning from 2008.
A transparent system was not followed and housing norms not adhered to in the
Housing norms chucked out
Even as KHB assured to make allotments of sites/houses/flats only by draw of lots in full public view under various categories – Higher Income Group (HIG), Middle Income Group (MIG),
The CAG report, which was placed in the recently-concluded assembly session in Belgaum, also finds that KHB violated the housing society law that does not permit allotment of multiple sites to an individual. It bars an individual from owning more than one site from any house building co-operative society, urban development authority, housing board or any other housing agency. As per the co-operative society’s rules, allottees should give an affidavit stating that neither they (applicant) nor any of their family members owns a site or a house in the state by any government housing board.
By allotting three sites to one Dharmaraj J, three to Gowhar Ayub Khan, four to Suma Umesh, five to Rajib Chowdhary, five to Lesli Joseph D’souza, five to Dr Anuradha B, six to Umesh Chandra I S and Manu MP and seven to Kishore Kumar Hegde K, KHB violated its eligibility and allotting norms.
The KHB rule formed under the Karnataka Housing Board Act on eligibility clearly states: “Who or whose husband/wife, has not been allotted a site/house by the board or any other authority in the state of Karnataka, who or whose husband/wife/minor children do not own a house in any urban area, municipality in Karnataka state only are eligible for application and allotment of sites by KHB.”
The allotments were made through direct allotment overriding norms and the guilty officials are now under the scanner, a source in the department told Bangalore Mirror.
“Arbitrary and unauthorised allotments were made. The allotments were neither under the board’s discretionary quota, nor had the board’s approval. The direct allotments were made by the top brass of KHB. Even as KHB rules specify all allotment should be made only as per rules in a transparent manner, it was not done,” the official said.
In Chickmagalur V phase alone, out of 602 sites allotted, 58 applicants were allotted more than one site, some in the same category and some in different categories.
The 138 sites that were allotted to these 58 applicants violated KHB allotment regulations of 1983, besides causing huge monetary loss to the state exchequer. In 41 cases, adjacent sites were allotted. Shockingly, multiple sites were allotted in a single application in 35 cases, the report states.
Other observations
Similar violations were done in allotment of stray and civic amenity (CA) sites, the CAG report observed.
“In the absence of specific rules and regulations for allotment of discretionary quota (DQ), stray and CA sites, severe inconsistencies in their allotment have been observed. KHB made allotments on request. The allotment of various categories of sites by KHB was not consistent with the rules. CA sites had been allotted directly without notifying these to the public and unjustifiable concession in the price had been extended to several allottees,” the report stated.
