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No Chandigarh Housing Board meeting held for over a year, 3 board members write to adviser
Chandigarh Housing Board fails to convene board meeting for over a year, leaving 60,000 property owners in limbo. Financial crunch forces encashing of fixed deposits.
With the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) failing to convene its board meeting for over a year, the issue of need-based changes continues to hang fire, leaving about 60,000 property owners in the lurch.
The meeting was last held in May 2023.
Three unofficial members of the CHB board of directors, Surinder Bahga, Poonam Sharma, and Hitesh Puri, have written to UT adviser-cum-board chairman Rajeev Verma, urging him to convene a meeting as soon as possible.
Last year, the board managed to convene only two meetings – one in February and the other in May.
In December 2023, UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit had said that the authorities were reconsidering need-based changes in about 60,000 CHB houses and would frame a policy accordingly, but seven months on, nothing seems to have materialised.
CHB Residents’ Federation president Nirmal Dutt said, “In the past decade, the issue of the need-based changes policy has generated much heat and dust, but no solution has been found. We feel the officers are not taking the issue seriously, and if it is not sorted out, we will hold a protest.”
Board member Poonam Sharma said, “It is sad that the board meeting has not been convened for over a year. We have written to the chairman to convene the meeting as soon as possible. The issue of need-based changes remains unresolved, and people are approaching us for answers, but we have none.”
Despite repeated attempts, UT adviser-cum-board chairman Rajeev Verma could not be reached for comments.
Board heading towards major financial crunch
The board is also facing financial constraints, so much so that it is being forced to encash its fixed deposits to meet its monthly expenses.
Once cash-rich, this UT administration undertaking was set up in 1976 with the primary objective of providing reasonably priced and good-quality housing to residents of the then-burgeoning city.
Every month, it requires ₹3.5 crore to pay salaries of its 400 regular and contractual employees. The monthly income from all collective sources stands at around ₹1 crore, as the sale deed money of residential and commercial properties, the major earner for the board, has fallen flat in recent years.
The CHB office is housed in a five-star, seven-storeyed green building in Sector 9 that was constructed at a cost of ₹60 crore.
