E-Paper
Politician-land mafia nexus rocks KDA
DOMINANCE OF politicians and land mafia in the Kanpur Development Authority is turning out to be a bad omen for the civic body. Right from a vice-chairman to nayab tehsildar, over half-a-dozen officials have been shown the door over the past six months. Reason: They blew the whistle on the politician-land shark nexus that is dominant in the KDA. Latest among the KDA officials to go is KDA joint secretary and enforcement squad in-charge Anurag Patel.
Many upright officers get shifted
DOMINANCE OF politicians and land mafia in the Kanpur Development Authority is turning out to be a bad omen for the civic body. Right from a vice-chairman to nayab tehsildar, over half-a-dozen officials have been shown the door over the past six months. Reason: They blew the whistle on the politician-land shark nexus that is dominant in the KDA. Latest among the KDA officials to go is KDA joint secretary and enforcement squad in-charge Anurag Patel.
Only few days had passed after the enforcement in-charge had started drive against encroachers and violators. This had resulted in the seizure of about three-dozen constructions in the city.
Though Patel is the latest victim of the nexus, the series of transfers had begun on December 14 last. On that day KDA V-C Anil Kumar was transferred to the Revenue Judicial Board, Allahabad. Kumar had touched a raw nerve. According to sources, he had then issued a notice to Choudhary Harmohan Singh Yadav, who is at present chairman Udyog Bandhu. Yadav had been asked to give KDA share of the profit he made from the sale of three plots, which the former had got regularised. The KDA had claimed Rs 90 lakh from Yadav.
After he got the KDA notice, Yadav had moved the High Court against it.
However, on December 14 Kumar was his transferred to Allahabad.
His transfer annoyed KDA employees. They staged demonstrations to protest against the transfer of “an honest officer”.
Kumar’s innings was one of the best ever for a KDA official. During his tenure, it was probably for the first time that the KDA had registered a profit of about Rs 150 crore.
‘Things’ again started moving at a brisk pace in the KDA. However, it was in May, according to sources, that town planner Mahaveer Singh was served transfer orders. According to sources, Singh was instrumental in exposing the ill intention of a builder to grab a large chunk of KDA land.
Meanwhile, joint secretary and then in-charge of the enforcement squad IP Pandey, along with tehsildar Anil Misra and nayab tehsildar Atma Swaroop Srivastava, continued to take up cudgels against land mafia and demolished several illegal constructions.
But ill tidings for the Kanpur Development Authority continued and all the three officials were transferred to different places on May 22.
Pandey and his team vacated some of the prominent KDA land in possession of land mafia and politicians. Some of them included 378 H block part and 6 M in Kakadev area, 582 N block also in Kakadev area and 24 plots at W block, Juhi on Hamirpur Road and a plot at Krishnanagar, besides dozen other.
As if this was not enough, enforcement squad in-charge and joint secretary Anurag Patel was transferred to Azamgarh.
According to a senior KDA official, the connivance of few officials, who faced the threat of being exposed, with politicians and land mafia could not be ruled out. Whatever may be the case, dominance of such ‘powers’ continue to adversely affect the smooth functioning at the KDA.
