Graft row in hill housing board

Vivek Chhetri, TT, 21 December 2018, Darjeeling: The vice-chairman of West Bengal Pahadia Minority Development Board has accused the chairman of "malpractices" and asking beneficiaries to hand over housing grants to some board members in violation of norms.

Arif Khan, the vice-chairman, said on Thursday: "The beneficiaries are being asked to sign on cheques and hand it over to him (chairman). They are supplying materials worth around Rs 85,000 and only about Rs 1.3 lakh is being used in building the houses. Development boards are granted Rs 2 lakh per beneficiary to build the houses and Khan said initially the amount is being transferred to a beneficiary's account and later being taken by the chairman and some board members.

"A sum of Rs 1.5 crore was also withdrawn during the (104-day) strike duration last year," alleged Khan.

Father Solomon Subba, chairman of the board, rejected the allegations and said Khan had been suspended as vice-chairman since December 6 this year as he had not completed the construction of 120 houses that were being supervised by him.

"The allegations are completely false. If I am keeping the cheques and ATM (cards) of the beneficiaries, let them come and check my house. The board decided to suspend him from his role as vice-chairman and we have asked him to complete the construction of 120 houses by January 2018," said Father Subba. Khan, however, said of the 112 houses being built on his watch, construction materials for some had not yet been delivered by the board.

The Pahadia Minority board has been formed for eight communities; Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Adivasis, Harijans, Bengali, Bihari and Marwaris.

"The board has so far received around Rs 20 crore. My information is that around Rs 17.5 crore has been used and my presumption is that there has been a corruption of Rs 7 to 8 crore," said Khan.

Fr Subba, however, said that houses were being built.

"We help those beneficiaries who cannot go and purchase materials. The beneficiaries are from the villages and some of them cannot go to cities and get the materials," said Fr Subba.

The Pahadia Muslim Welfare Society, submitted a memorandum to the Darjeeling DM highlighting the anomalies. The society is headed by Khan.

"On 15th February 2018, the chairman of the board announced that 500 houses were constructed by him for the poor Pahadia Minorities. The houses were only in documents and didn't exist," the memorandum states.

"These allegations were made in June and the government has duly verified and audit has also been conducted," said Subba.

Joyoshi Das Gupta, the district magistrate of Darjeeling, could not be immediately contacted.