Not the first time Goel got DDA land: AAP (Lead, correcting name of place in Para 7)

In the wake of a media report about an NGO associated with Union Minister Vijay Goel being a beneficiary of DDA land allotment, the AAP on Thursday said it was not the first time that the BJP leader was recipient of such favours from the DDA.

The party said it will launch a daily campaign, wherein "land scams of the Delhi Development Authority under the very nose of the Prime Minister would be exposed".

"It is not the first time that Goel has been given land in such manner. In 2002, when Goel was a Minister in the then National Democratic Alliance government, as per a report published by Times of India, the same society (Vaish Aggarwal Educational Society or VAES) was given prime land on Mehrauli-Badarpur Road," Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Saurabh Bharadwaj told media persons here.

The Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports courted controversy on Thursday when the Indian Express daily in a report revealed that after DDA allegedly tweaked the layout plan the NGO "closely associated" with Goel was allotted land for a "toy bank" where people can donate toys to be distributed among the poor and orphans. The Minister has since denied the charge.

The news report said the land was earlier earmarked for a post office but on "January 15, 2016, a Delhi Development Authority official proposed... (a) change in layout plan to accommodate VAES request be considered if the land is to be allotted for toy bank".

"The screening committee sanctioned the layout plan modification on August 8. The plot was allotted to VAES on September 1, 2016, and it made a payment of Rs 1.77 crore on October 19, 2016," the news report said.

The AAP leader said the said plot in Derawal Nagar on the Grand Trunk Road was being used as a "park" for Adharsheela Nursery School, run by the NGO on the adjacent plot.

"The plot is already developed with a green cover and is being used as a playground for the school. Without any regard to due process, the then DDA Chairman Najeeb Jung allotted the land to Goel, we found out from the DDA documents," Bharadwaj said.

The DDA records mention Goel as Vice President, and son Siddhant and daughter Vidyun among the NGO members, the news report said.

Bharadwaj said the Delhi government had been asking for land to build Mohalla Clinics and hospitals but the DDA never acceded to its demands.

"In a letter sent to the DDA by our Health Secretary, we mentioned several societies which were given lands worth thousands of crores (of rupees) 20-30-40 years back on the promise that they will build hospitals.

"Even now these lands are encroached. The period within which they were supposed to build too has expired. We gave a list of those 18 plots (to the DDA) and urged for allotment for building Mohalla Clinics there, but the DDA didn't allot these to us," he said.

Similarly, the AAP leader said, the state government was denied land for bus depot and for landfill sites, despite a National Green Tribunal order which noted the overflowing dump sites.

--IANS

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