ALTHOUGH THE Allahabad Development Authority (ADA) has been facing financial crunch, its officials are quite well off and many of them are millionaires.
This is the story of the body, which was founded by the State Government in 1973 with an aim to solve housing problem of the people, particularly those belonging to middle class and the lower strata of the society.
Earn as much illegal money as you can by overlooking illegalities, and if caught on the wrong foot, give a part of the ill-gotten wealth to the powers that be and finally the inquiry officer to get out of the quagmire. And this is exactly what most of the officers posted here had been doing till now.
But, the latest trend in corruption is a step ahead.
To hoodwink the court and the government, the ADA officers have now started suspending junior officers for the wrongs committed by their predecessors. Reason: The suspending authority do not have the courage to take action against the real culprits because of their money power and affinity to the power. Yet they went ahead and suspended the junior officials all in a bid to impress the court and the government that they were on their job to check the irregularities.
There is another shocker. The illegalities, for which a JE and three building inspectors were suspended, have yet not stopped. Surprisingly, illegal construction of these buildings is still going on. This gives one all the reason to believe that either the higher-ups are themselves hand in glove with the wrong doers and if not they are hardly bothered to see logical end to an action taken by them.
{{/usCountry}}There is another shocker. The illegalities, for which a JE and three building inspectors were suspended, have yet not stopped. Surprisingly, illegal construction of these buildings is still going on. This gives one all the reason to believe that either the higher-ups are themselves hand in glove with the wrong doers and if not they are hardly bothered to see logical end to an action taken by them.
{{/usCountry}}On one hand, the ADA managers have failed to carry out the job for which they are posted, they have been helping private builders to amass wealth by carrying out illegal constructions on the other.
Imagine the situation: The ADA fails to get or acquire land but the builders get the same easily. This has resulted in grabbing of large tracts of nazul and state land by builders. On their part, the district authorities too cannot escape the blame.
If the sources are to be believed the ADA, in connivance with these builders, has helped the latter gobble up properties worth nearly two thousand and five hundred crores of rupees till date and the practice is still going on with impunity.
Interestingly, you tell any ADA official about some illegality and pat comes the reply: "Achcha dekhte hain, pata lagate hain."
He even goes to the extent of telling the newspaper man "kaam rukwa diya hai aur challan kar diya hai." But the next morning one can see the work going on without any hassle. How and why this continues to happen, may be anybody's guess.