The Urban Development Ministry has issued evictions notices to 16 former ministers who are yet to vacate the houses allotted to them and have run up a combined bill of Rs. 20,92,463 on account of a month’s rent.
These former ministers had time till July 26 to vacate their house, but have failed to move out, Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu told the Lok Sabah in a written reply.
As per rules, all former ministers and MPs who are not entitled to a government accommodation have a month’s time to vacate the premises, they can extend their stay by paying the market rent, but these extensions are considered on the basis of merit.
After taking over, the BJP-led NDA government asked all the former Ministers and MPs to vacate their houses within the stipulated time and later granted a month’s extension. But on completion of two months, the government has begun the process of eviction.
“The eviction notices have been sent, those who want to retain their houses will have to make an appeal, which will be a heard by the legal office of the Law and Justice Ministry. Since there is a shortage of accommodation, it is unlikely that applications for extended stay will be accepted,” said a senior official of the UD Ministry.
Among those who are yet to vacate their houses are Kapil Sibal, Ajit Singh, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Beni Prasad Verma, Pallam Raju, Dr. Girija Vyas, Krishna Tirath, S.K. Jena, Sachin Pilot, Jitendra Singh, Pradip Jain Aditya, Porika Balram Naik, Killi Kriparani and Manikrao Gavit.
Mr. Naidu informed the House that damage charges ranged from Rs. 53,250 per month in case of Type V accommodation of Lalchand Kataria to Rs 2,43,678 for Type VIII accommodation of Jaipal Reddy.
He also said 21 former ministers are staying in General Pool Bungalows and they have been given 15 days time to move into their entitled accommodation to be provided by respective House Committees. These former ministers who are members of either Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha have been advised to obtain accommodation from their respective pools.
These former ministers included A.K. Anthony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Veerappa Moily, Vyalar Ravi, Oscar Fernandes, Jairam Ramesh, Jyothiraditya Scindia, K.V. Thomas, K. Ranhman Khan, K.H. Muniyappa, Shashi Tharoor, Dr.K.Chiranjivi, Mullappally Ramachandran, Rajiv Shukla, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, A.H. Khan Choudhury, Ninon Erring, Dr.E.M. Sudershan Nachiappan, K.C. Venugopal and J. Seelam.
