Now, Purohit stalls CHB’s IT Park housing scheme

Caught in environmental wrangles, Chandigarh Housing Board’s housing scheme at IT Park has joined the list of projects being suspended by UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit.

Stating that the project site is located within the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of the Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary, the Union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) had refused to accord approval to the housing scheme, featuring 728 flats in three categories, in October last year.

Now, at a recent meeting of the administration, the administrator directed officials concerned to suspend the project. While the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) had again written to the UT chief conservator of forest to approach the green ministry regarding the project, the chief conservator of forest will now not be taking it up.

The 16-acre land for the IT Park project is part of the 123 acres that CHB retrieved from Parsvnath Developers in 2015 after a long-drawn legal battle. The prime land’s fate now hangs in balance.

UT chief conservator of forest TC Nautiyal said the ministry had provided substantial reasons for rejecting the project, so there was no possibility of pursuing the matter further.

Following the ministry’s refusal last year, UT had written back, clarifying that the project site is located 1.25 km beyond the ESZ, where construction is allowed, and that the project is approved in the Chandigarh Master Plan-2031, but no further communication has been received.

In 2017, Chandigarh had declared an area varying from 2 km to 2.75 km from the sanctuary boundary that falls within UT as ESZ, which was notified by the MoEF the same year.

Earlier, in April this year, the then CHB CEO, Yashpal Garg, had also written to the UT administration, to take bath the 123 acres and refund the ₹1,000 crore spent by the board on the land since 2005.

Following the letter, the UT administrator had sought an explanation from CHB about how the funds were spent.

In the works since 2020

The housing scheme, featuring 728 flats in three categories, was first approved by the CHB board of directors in December 2020.

Classified into 28 four-bedroom, 448 three-bedroom and 252 two-bedroom flats, the scheme was planned on two plots, measuring 10.51 and 6.43 acres.

The towers were proposed to have two basements with provision of parking of two cars for each flat in addition to surface parking for visitors. The four-bedroom flat was expected to cost around ₹2.75 crore, three-bedroom ₹1.9 crore and two-bedroom around ₹1.3 crore.

With the administrator already suspending CHB housing scheme in Sector 53 in August, now no housing projects, either in public or private sector, are coming up in the city.

Here, the board had planned to offer 340 flats in three categories — 192 three-bedroom, 100 two-bedroom and 48 two-bedroom EWS flats, for ₹1.65 crore, ₹1.40 crore and ₹55 lakh, respectively.

In the absence of private developers, residents depend solely on the administration for new projects to tackle housing shortage for the ever-rising population. But it has failed to introduce any housing scheme since 2016.

Other suspended UT decisions

On September 27, the UT administrator directed officials to suspend the much-touted non-motorised transport (NMT) green corridor, work on which had been underway since June.

Earlier, while the UT administration’s Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee had allowed the owner of Kiran Cinema in Sector 22 to construct two commercial floors without demolishing the outer façade, the administrator put the decision on hold on September 22. The permission was given during a meeting chaired by UT adviser Dharam Pal on September 14.