Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who has time and again diligently portrayed himself to be adoring a common man’s lifestyle recently spent around Rs 45 crores to renovate his official bungalow located at Civil Lines in New Delhi. Amid this, a new controversy over the ‘illegal’ residence of one of his associates has come to the fore.
After cancelling the Type VI bungalow that was previously “illegally” allocated to Bibhav Kumar, the private secretary to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Directorate of Vigilance has ordered the PWD to abide by the housing allotment regulations and only assign Type IV quarters to him, according to the reports.
The agency found that Kumar was unlawfully given a Type VI house in violation of the Delhi Allotment of Government Residences (General Housing Pool) Rules even though he was eligible for Type IV housing. On Wednesday, August 23 the department also wrote the PWD secretary a letter regarding the issue.
The said letter also noted that Kumar was initially allotted Type-V residence.
“It is noticed that the Type-V accommodation to Bibhav Kumar is not as per Rule (20) D of Allotment Rules. It is observed by the PWD that as per Allotment Rules…He is entitled only to Type-IV accommodation since it is out of turn allotment. Since he was allotted a bigger quarter i.e. Type-V, a proposal was moved by the Secretary, PWD on 18.08.2016 for taking ex-post facto approval of L-G for regularising the allotment of one type above to Kumar,” read the letter.
The L-G instructed in his response that the case should be handled appropriately in accordance with “extant laws, rules, & precedents.” Reports further mention that Kumar occupied a Type-VI accommodation (bungalow) allotted by the Delhi Jal Board whereas he is not on the body’s payroll.
“The allotment of Type-V accommodation at Rajpur Road is void ab initio as per the extant rules. The proposal of regularising the Type-V accommodation was also not regularised by LG. Therefore, the competent authority has directed that PWD may stick to the rules of allotment and allot only the entitled category of quarter i.e. Type-IV to Kumar after canceling the Type-VI bungalow allotted to him, ” the vigilance department added in the letter.
It is worth noting that the Aam Aadmi Party has long fashioned itself as the common man’s party, publicly championing the cause of austerity and attacking its political opponents over their purported extravagance. In 2013, Arvind Kejriwal stated that he and his AAP ministers would not occupy the government-provided bungalows and instead opt for smaller government flats.
Ten years on, the lofty promises and claims made by them appear nothing but political grandstanding. It was reported how Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal spent Rs 45 crores to renovate his official bungalow located at Civil Lines in New Delhi in April this year.
According to a report earlier, the taxpayer’s money that Kejriwal used for renovation and not really ‘construction’ of the Chief Minister’s residence, could have been better utilized for the benefit of Delhites during Covid. Notably, Rs 45 crores could have been utilized to build 224 Mohalla clinics. Considering how badly Delhi struggled during the pandemic, the amount could have been utilized to purchase 12,459 oxygen concentrators. As many as 2,25,000 PPE kits and 2,710 ventilators could have been purchased during the Covid. But, Kejriwal seemingly had to ‘renovate’ his house on priority.
