Yamuna Expressway authority scraps officials’ discretionary powers in land allotment
No interviews will take place for deciding allottees, instead a points-based system will be used
To end corruption in land allotment, the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), in its 60th board meeting on Friday, scrapped the procedure of personal interviews of applicants for allotment of land. It will instead allot land on the basis of a points system.
At present, the YEIDA conducts interviews of applicants who want to get land for group housing projects or setting up industries, hospitals, colleges or any other such project. A committee interviews the applicant to decide eligibility for land allotment.
“We have removed the discretionary powers of officials, be it the chief executive officer (CEO) or junior officials. Instead, we have formulated a set of guidelines to be followed to allot a piece of land in housing, industrial, institutional, commercial and other categories. An applicant will be alloted land only if he or she fulfils the guidelines, unlike earlier when the allotment depended on the decision of an official,” said Prabhat Kumar, chairman, YEIDA.
According to the new rules, the authority will award points during the allotment process on the basis of the merits of an applicant.
“For example, if an applicant has the funds to buy the land, we will award him 50 points. If he has to borrow money, we will give him only 10 points. If giving land to the applicant will generate jobs, we will give him a certain number of points. If not, the points will be less,” said Kumar.
“If two or more people have applied for the same plot, then the one who gets more points will get the land,” the chairman added.
YEIDA has taken this decision to end the possibility of favouritism or nepotism in land allotment. The authority has in the past ended up allotting land to many ineligible applicants who have failed to develop any project on the land.
Apart from this, the authority has also removed its CEO’s discretionary power to issue a tender of up to Rs5 lakh.
In Noida and Greater Noida authorities, a CEO can issue a tender of up to Rs5 lakh on his discretion, for urgent public works.
“Now, I can issue a tender of only Rs1 lakh in important cases where work has to be done immediately, such as digging of roads or repair of drains. All other tenders worth more than Rs1 lakh will have to be awarded through the e-tendering process,” said Arun Vir Singh, CEO of YEIDA.