Dhankhar, Kharge face off in Rajya Sabha over starred question on withdrawal of builders’ due to authorities | India News

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha witnessed a faceoff between Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday when the former announced that a starred question on non-payment of dues to authorities by builders in Noida and other cities of Uttar Pradesh had been “withdrawn”, moments before it was to be taken up.
Kharge asked how a question could be withdrawn when it was in the list and had been circulated among members. Dhankhar said, “Leave it to me. There are rules and I have only informed the House. If anyone wants to know the background, I will let you know.” Not satisfied with the response, Kharge was heard saying had the question been withdrawn before it was listed, there would not have been an issue.
To this, Dhankhar said, “Let me inform the LoP that this is not the first time. As a matter of fact, it’s very frequent. It’s a parliamentary practice and the decision is taken by the chairman.” Unhappy with some observations of Kharge, the chairman said he knew his “limitations”.
Interestingly, the question was asked by Laxmikant Bajpayee, a BJP MP from UP. He had asked the housing and urban affairs ministry to give the names of developers of housing projects in Noida and other cities of UP who had not paid dues to development authorities and the amount owed by them. He had also sought details of the projects. Bajpayee sought the dates from which the dues were pending and the provisions in law for taking action against defaulting developers.
The set of questions also sought details of the action taken by authorities against such developers and their names, and the manner in which the authorities proposed to recover dues from the developers.
Non-payment of dues by builders have denied lakhs of homebuyers from getting their properties registered even after taking possession of flats.
As per the report of the Amitabh Kant panel on ‘Legacy Stalled Projects’, the Indian Banks’ Association had estimated that 4.1 lakh stressed dwelling units involving over Rs 4 lakh crore were impacted in these stalled projects and about 2.4 lakh stressed dwelling units were situated in NCR. Noida has a large chunk of such projects.