The Hindu : DDA to set up information kiosks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 19, 2003

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DDA to set up information kiosks

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI SEPT. 18. The Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Bandaru Dattatreya, today declared that the corruption-tainted Delhi Development Authority will be setting up information kiosks at its Vikas Minar and Vikas Sadan offices here to make its functioning more transparent for the public.

Addressing a Press conference after reviewing the functioning of the Authority, Mr Dattatreya said the kiosks would provide information about all DDA schemes to the public in general and the allottees in particular. While by this September-end six kiosks are planned at the two important DDA buildings, by November all its offices will have these kiosks with touch-screen facility.

Simultaneously, he said, DDA would launch a telecounselling service through a toll-free telephone number in which information pertaining to procedures and schemes will be given out. And through its bilingual website, DDA will provide the facility of downloading forms for various transactions to the people.

The Minister, who earlier in the day met the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Vijai Kapoor, however, defended DDA saying 95 per cent of its personnel were "good people''. On the failure of the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a chargesheet against the accused officials in the land scam case, he said that in a democracy cases do take time. "Take the Bofors case, it has dragged on for 20 years,'' he proclaimed.

Stating that the image of DDA before the CBI raid was not as bad as it is now, the Minister said though the probe by the Central intelligence agency is taking time, it would ensure that the ``truth comes out''. However, he chose to deny the fact that the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had himself proclaimed DDA to be one of the most ``corrupt'' departments.

Flanked and briefed intermittently by senior DDA officials, Mr Dattatreya gave a similar explanation for why the enquiry into the ``Mega Project'' scam of DDA has dragged for over five months despite assurances of speedy probe to the Parliament.

The Minister also declared that ``in situ development'' of jhuggi jhopri clusters would become an important aspect of all urban centres as the Government was bent upon ensuring adequate rights to the work force through its National Policy on Slums. He said in Delhi too the emphasis would be on in situ development and relocation of JJ clusters for meeting the housing needs of the city.

Denying that he was reviewing the progress of DDA only to assist the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections, he said the main idea was to get the Authority to expedite the preparation of the Master Plan 2021. Hoping that it would be ready within a year, he said the Centre has already issued detailed guidelines for the same.

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