PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, March 3: Jamshedpur East MLA Sarayu Roy on Thursday shot off a letter to the chief secretary Sukhdev Singh explaining the latter about the alleged irregularities in the controversial Tata dub- lease issue in Jamshedpur.
Roy said that he wrote the letter to the chief secretary as he came to know that a meeting has been fixed by the government on March 7 to discuss the sub-lease issue.
“Investigations so far revealed that 59 sub lessee of Tata Steel has violated the revenue rules resulting in loss to the government exchequer. I had first raised the issue in the state assembly in the year 2008. Since then several probes were carried out by high-level committees, the local deputy commissioner and even Kolhan commissioner past. In most places of sub-leased areas high rises, hotels and malls have come up in gross violation of the sub-lease agreement. The good thing is that the government seems to be serious as it has convened a meeting on the issue,” said Roy in the letter to the chief secretary.
He requested the chief secretary to also discuss the ownership right of slums during the meeting.
Notably, in 2005 during the renewal of Tata’s lease 1,750 acres of land on which the slums settled was kept outside the purview of dub- lease.
The slum dwellers have been fighting for ownership rights for a long time but to no avail.
EoM