According to official figures, an amount of Rs 42.34 crore was spent on renovations from November 2019 to November 2023, with an average of 86 lakhs allocated for the renovation and maintenance of residences for ministers and officers in Haryana during a 49-month period.
Ministers, including Dushyant Chautala, Ranjit Singh, Sandeep Singh, Mulchand Sharma, and Speaker Gyan Chand Gupta, had renovations done every year. The expenses incurred for renovating the houses of Cabinet Ministers, OSDs, and senior officials continue to impose an additional and substantial financial burden on the state exchequer. Whether under the present or previous governments in Haryana, this issue has been under discussion for a considerable time. Similarly, the amount spent on renovating the official bungalow of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been widely discussed across the country. In this context, it has come to light that ministers and officials in Haryana are not lagging far behind anyone in the matter of renovating government residences. The statistics tabled in the house depicted that during a period of last 49 months, on an average around an amount of Rs 10 crore is being spent on renovation work on the residence of ministers and officials allotted to them by the state government. Logically, the entire work is done as per the rule book but the question arises what is the need to spend a huge amount on this.
In this series, it came to light that Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, Power Minister Ranjit Chautala and Speaker Gyan Chand Gupta are at the forefront in terms of maximum expenses made to renovate their residences. An amount of Rs 1.86 crore, 85 Lakh and 61 lakh and 21 lakh was spent on the house of Dushyant Chautala in 2020-21, 2021-11, 2022-23 and in 2023-24 respectively Whereas, an amount of 5 lakh, 82 lakh, 46 lakh, 2 lakh and 16 lakh was spent on the renovation work of GyanChad Gupta’s house in 2019-20, 2020-21,2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 respectively. Likewise, an expense of Rs 47 lakh, 82 lakh, 46 lakh, 61 lakh and 16 lakh was made to renovate the house of speaker in 2019-20, 2020-21,2021-22, 2022-23 and Rs in 2023-24 respectively. Sandeep Singh, the Minister of State accused in the sexual exploitation case is also not lagging behind in this matter as an amount of Rs 95 lakh has been spent on renovation of Sandeep Singh’s government house located in Sector 7 in 2020-21 followed by spent renovation amount i,.e. Rs 96 lakh , 46 lakh and 9 lakh in 2021-22, 2022-22 and 2023-23 respectively. Besides, an amount of Rs 2 crore has been spent on the renovation and maintenance work of the residence of power minister Ranjit Singh Chautala during the aforementioned period.
Further, the data revealed that a total amount of Rs 42.38 crore has been spent on the renovation work during the period of 49 months from November 2019 to November 2023. In this context, every month a huge amount of Rs 86 lakh is being spent on these houses as renovation. According to official information, renovation and repair work of these houses is done following prior permission from the government and on the demand of the residents. It is pertinent to mention that from November 2019 to March 2020, an amount of Rs 2.45 crore was made to renovate residences of ministers and officials. A maximum expenditure has been incurred on renovation work in the financial year 2021-22 and as total of Rs 1176.79 lakh was spent on renovation during followed by an amount of Rs 1018.81 lakh, 693.72 lakh and 520.13 lakh in 2020-21, 2022-23 and 2023 -24 so far respectively. Thus, during a period of 49 months from November 2019 till November 2024 an amount of Rs 4234.68 lakh has been spent on the renovation work.
According to official information, this amount is being spent on the maintenance of 102 government houses and out of these , 84 residences located in the state capital Chandigarh have been allotted to ministers and their OSDs following the state’s quote in UT. Since Chandigarh is jointly the capital of Haryana and Punjab, both the states have a fixed quota for the housing system here. As many as 271 houses have been maintained in the period from November 2019 to November 2023 incurring an expenditure Rs 4234 lakh. As many as 32 houses were renovated from November 2019 to March 2020. Apart from this, 43 houses have been renovated in 2020-21, 112 in 2021-22, 51 in 2022-23 and 33 houses have been renovated so far in 2023-23.
Data pertaining to the amount spent on renovation and maintenance
November 2019 to March 2020-245.23 Lakh
April, 2020 to March 2021- 1018.81 Lakh
April, 2021 to March 2022-1776.79 Lakh
April, 2022 to March 2023 – 693.72 Lakh
April, 2023 to November 2023 – 520.13 Lakh
