Transparency In Urban Development Ministry

The urban development ministry has gained an unsavoury reputation following indictments by the Supreme Court and there is an urgent need to undo this, urban development minister Ram Jethmalani said yesterday.

Jethmalani, who assumed office, said the work allotted to me is a very challenging one. The department has acquired an unsavoury reputation in the wake of the recent rulings of the Supreme Court. All that has to be undone.

The Supreme Court has indicted Sheila Kaul and her deputy P K Thungon, both ministers in Narasimha Rao cabinet, for misusing the discretionary quota on allotment of houses and had imposed a hefty penalty on Kaul.

Jethmalani agreed that problems concerning mushrooming slums in urban areas has become acute through the years and said something urgently needs to be done about it.

All the politicians for last 30 years have talked about clearance of slums but these have increased manifolds, Jethmalani, one of the leading criminal lawyers, said.

Asked whether he thought it was impossible to clear the slums, the minister said it is not impossible to clear but it requires both will and resolve.

I will seriously apply my mind to solve the issue, he said.

Jethmalani said he was aware of the acute shortage of housing units faced by people in metropolitan cities across the country and added it was part of our manifesto to construct 20 lakh houses every year.

How stupendous the task is, I have to study, he said, adding that a comprehensive scheme determining who the houses were to be built for was needed. I have to sort it out.

On his assuming charge as minister, Jethmalani said it was a mixed feeling. I have been so intimately associated with law for last 55 years, it is almost like bidding good bye to it.

The 74-year-old minister said he would not return to active practice as he had taken to teaching and writing.