No Chandigarh housing board flat, won't vacate government house, says ex-staffer

No Chandigarh housing board flat, won’t vacate government house, says ex-staffer

CHANDIGARH: House that! A man has padded up for a long innings in his government accommodation despite retirement.

Hitting out at the failure of the UT administration to provide a flat to him under the UT Employees Housing Scheme-2008, the retired staffer has extended his stay in his borrowed home. Going a step further, he has cited a condition in the agreement for not having any new place to shift.

Parvesh Kumar had retired on March 31 from the post of superintendent, grade II, health department. He was allotted house no. 1, ayurvedic dispensary, Sector 37 D, Chandigarh.

Kumar said he had succeeded in CHB’s UT Employees Housing scheme-2008 draw of lots for one BHK flat having a value of Rs 10 to Rs 13 lakh in 2010. The possession of the flat is awaited. “A condition of the scheme refrained me from having any other residential property in my name or in the name of family in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali till the possession of CHB’s flat. So, I could not own a house to reside elsewhere,” he said.

It was in March he had requested the UT to allow him to retain the accommodation after retirement till the date of possession of CHB flat. But he was ordered to vacate the house or face action and pay 100 times the rent for the first three months of overstay and 200 times from the fourth month, he said.

Kumar has now written a letter to the administration, asking it to treat the legal notice, that he should not be evicted from government accommodation and not directed to pay penal rent till the physical possession of the CHB flat.

He even sought directions to the CHB, which is an undertaking of UT administration, to complete the scheme. He even demanded that the rent of the government accommodation of overstaying be paid by the CHB and to buy back his residential flat, which he had got in the draw for Rs 95 lakh (market value).

A senior UT official said that the matter of UT employees housing scheme in pending in the Punjab and Haryana high court.

Housing scheme status:

Failed to get any relief from the UT administration, the UT employees had recently written to home minister Amit Shah and union government to delink UT Employees Housing Scheme-2008 from the MHA’s order of 2012 and calculate prices of flats on the basis of rates published on scheme’s brochure in 2008 instead of collector rates of 2016