Commissioner’s arrest won’t stall rollout of housing scheme, says DDA
NEW DELHI: A day after the arrest of its principal commissioner (housing) JP Agarwal, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Thursday assured that it would not affect the rollout of the housing scheme scheduled to be launched this year.
A senior official of the landowning agency said principal commissioner (coordination) might be given additional charge of the department held by Agrawal.
“JP Agrawal has not been suspended yet. As per the rule, suspension is ordered if an official remains in police custody for at least 48 hours or more. Principal commissioner (coordination) may be given the additional charge of housing. And Agrawal’s arrest will not hamper our proposed housing scheme 2018,” said the official.
The DDA is expected to launch a new housing scheme offering 21,000 flats in different categories around July.
The announcement in this regard was made by Agrawal soon after the draw of lots for the 2017 housing scheme.
Principal commissioner is the top official of the department who plans and supervises residential schemes till the allotment of flats. He also plays an important role in the formulation of the housing policy.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday arrested Agrawal on charges of seeking and accepting bribe in a flat allotment case. The CBI had alleged that Agrawal showed “undue favours” to the accused persons.
“The investigation agency has not written to us with regard to the arrest of Agrawal yet, therefore, we don’t have much information about the case,” the DDA official said.
Shripal, chief vigilance officer (CVO) of DDA, said DDA would not launch any internal inquiry into the matter as it is already being probed by the CBI. “There is no question of initiating a parallel inquiry,” he said.
Agrawal is a 1998-batch Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer and was appointed in the DDA in April, 2015. He supervised DDA’S housing schemes launched last year.