Housing dept to send notice to Bengal Greenfield Housing Development Company

The state Housing department will send notice to Bengal Greenfield Housing Development Company for flouting the conditions on which the land was allotted to the firm.

The housing project is developed by Chandan Basu, son of former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Sovan Chatterjee, state Housing minister said an inquiry conducted by the department had revealed that many firms had flouted the conditions on which land was allotted to them. The department will send notice to all of them.

He said Gautam Deb, the Housing minister in the Left Front regime was the chairman of Housing Board and Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO). Now, each of these bodies is being guided by different laws. 

The laws followed by Housing department is different from that of HIDCO and Housing Board. But while allotting land to the firms, Deb did not follow the norms. He had followed the rule of Housing Board to allot land under HIDCO which is grossly illegal. Again, while allotting land under Housing Board he had followed the rule of Housing department. “We have detected these irregularities and accordingly notices will be served to the firms that have received the land.”

It may be recalled that HIDCO was set up with Deb as the chairman and Sanjay Mitra who was the former chief secretary as its first managing director in mid 1990s. Mitra who was working in Delhi was again brought back to the city. 

New Town was developed under HIDCO’s initiative and there was budgetary allocation by the state Finance department. Deb used to consider himself as the “uncrowned king” of Rajarhat and from allocation of land to setting up of syndicates were all looked after by him. The CPI(M) leaders because of sheer arrogance never thought that their “ kingdom” would go someday, flouted the laws and allotted land to their favourites.