Chandigarh, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar claimed on Thursday that the present BJP government in the state had taken effective steps for keeping a check on corruption in Change of Land Use (CLU) cases which was prevailing in the previous Congress government.
His remarks came in the light of controversy around the Robert Vadra-DLF CLU land deal and several other CLU cases.
“The state government has prepared a new policy on November 10, 2017 under which applications would be invited, and license and CLU would be given through open auction and that too in limited numbers,” Khattar told the media here.
He alleged that “there was rampant corruption in issuance of CLU during the previous government”.
“The Chief Minister had taken away all the powers to issue CLU and license of colonies which were vested with Director, Town and Country Planning Department. But we have not only scrapped such orders but also given back the powers to the Director Town and Country Planning,” Khattar pointed out.
The Chief Minister said that the Licensing and CLU Policy of the department has also been amended.
“Earlier, licenses of group housing, commercial and IT Park were given on the basis of first-come, first-served basis. The present state government has prepared a new policy under which applications are invited from the applicants and license and CLU are given through auction,” he added.
He said that the state government has also decentralized the powers for issuing industrial CLUs, permission and licenses to colonies.
“The powers of providing industrial CLUs of up to one acre have been given to district level committee headed by Deputy Commissioner concerned whereas, Empowered Executive Committee has the power to give approval to big units,” he said.