Estate Department provides accommodation to the MLAs/MLCs/MPs and others. There are set rules for making allotment of Government accommodation to these persons and there are also set rules of vacating the Government accommodation when the occupants are no more entitled to be in its possession. In the course of a RTI application, it has come to public notice that there are more than one hundred occupations of Government accommodation that are illegal. Either the occupants are no more members of the legislature or they have expired while their kith continue to occupy the accommodation. These illegal occupancies are reported from the winter capital Jammu. Why the Estates Department has not followed the rules and evicted occupancy when the occupant was not legally entitled to the accommodation remains a question.
The allied issue is of rent. A long as these persons remain entitled to occupy the accommodation they pay only nominal rent as provided by the rules. But when they are no more members, they are neither entitled to Government accommodation nor to subsidized or reduced rent. If we make calculation of the loss of rent to the Government it computes to millions of rupees. Who is responsible for this irregularity? Responsibility has to be fixed and somebody has to be answerable. The fact of the matter is that democracy can be misused and in these cases that have come to public notice, democracy has been misused. The law of the land should prevail. We will highly appreciate if the Government takes proper action under law to evict the illegal occupancy, make the culprits pay the penalty and for future make sure that no such irregularities are allowed to happen, whatever the case. Favouritism and nepotism are the canker eating into the vitals of administration.
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