Orissa slams door on discretionary quota

After all the hue and cry surrounding allotment of land parcels and flats to ministers and bureaucrats under discretionary quota, the Orissa government has finally decided to do away with this system.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday directed all the development authorities including Orissa State Housing Board (OSHB) and Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) to stop allotment of land and flats under the discretionary quota with immediate effect. The decision comes a month after the ‘discretionary quota’ kicked up a storm in the aftermath of an investigative exposure by a leading national news channel. Ministers, bureaucrats, former and sitting judges, top cops and even journalists were beneficiaries of this quota which had landed the government in deep embarrassment.

Meanwhile, the state minister for law and rural development Bikram K Arukh, who had come under attack for availing two plots under the discretionary quota, is believed to have surrendered one of his plots at the Pokhariput locality in the city to BDA.

In case of general administration department, there is no discretionary quota. However, land is allotted based on the recommendation of a committee formed since 1998 and headed by Director of Estates.

With a view to streamline the allotment process, the Chief Minister has directed to replace that committee with a high power committee headed by the Chief Secretary and consisting of secretaries of departments of revenue & disaster management, law, housing & urban development, finance and special secretary (general administration) as members. This committee will henceforth scrutinize all proposals for allotment of land under general administration department in the city. A similar procedure will be followed for Idco (Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa) lands in the city.

It may be mentioned that allegations were leveled against former urban and housing development ministers K V Singhdeo and Samir Dey (from BJP) and Badri Narayan Patra (BJD) for offering flats and land parcels to people belonging to privilege class at concessional rates through use of minister's discretionary quota. The discretionary quota stood at 10 per cent for BDA and five per cent for Cuttack Development Authority (CDA).