New Delhi: Almost a month and a half after the New Delhi-based Press Club of India (PCI) was assured by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs that it would finally be handed over the plot it had secured in the year 2002 for the construction of a new campus, it appears that the government is now in two minds about letting the PCI own the land. On June 18, 2018, PCI paid up the entire pending amount – Rs 2.47 crore and Rs 12 lakh as penalty for delay – to the Delhi Land and Development Office (DLDO), under the ministry of housing and urban affairs, and was assured by officials that the club could take possession of the land the next day. However, since then, the department has only been delaying the possession process, citing “unavoidable circumstances”. Since the ministry has already accepted a full payment of around Rs 5.5 crore, the PCI is already the rightful owner of the land. Speaking to The Wire, PCI president Gautam Lahiri said, “As was demanded by the land and development office, we paid an amount of Rs 2.47 crore in four installments since January this year. On June 19, when we paid the final installment, the deputy land and development officer issued us a letter of possession. We were told that officials from the DLDO would give us physical possession of the land on June 20 between 12 noon to 3 pm. We were naturally jubilant and shared it with the PCI members. But I received a text message thereafter from the officer that they would not be able to give us possession that day due to some unavoidable circumstances.”Since then, Lahiri said, there has been no movement. “Through June and July, PCI wrote three letters to DLDO but has received no response. Then, we wrote a letter to the Union minister of housing and urban affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri, requesting him to expedite the possession. But unfortunately, he also has not replied.”The plot twistSo, what went wrong? According to trusted sources, it appears Rajya Sabha TV, led by vice-president of India Venkaiah Naidu, too has its eyes on the plot which happens to be in Lutyens Delhi on Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road. In March this year, the Rajya Sabha TV officials sent a proposal requesting the PCI to share the plot with the government-owned channel, which was looking to set up a new office in the national capital. The office bearers of the PCI shared the proposal in an executive council meeting but it was vetoed by majority of the union members. “The Rajya Sabha TV officials were invited to the executive committee meeting but they asked the PCI to postpone the meeting as they claimed to be travelling abroad with the vice-president then. However, since the meeting was already scheduled, the PCI could not postpone it but asked the officials to explain their proposal later. However, none of the TV officials got in touch with the PCI thereafter,” a PCI member told The Wire, alleging that the RSTV office was trying to put indirect pressure on the PCI to share the plot with it. He further said that the RSTV owned a plot of land in RK Puram area of Delhi, which has now become an illegally-occupied slum cluster. “The BJP is opposed to the idea of getting the land vacated as the people residing there are mostly its supporters.” The PCI, said the PCI member, also sent a delegation to meet Hardeep Puri but he apparently said that he wanted to ensure that the club’s mode of payment was fulfilling the regulations. “It is amazing how the ministry is dithering after issuing the letter of possession. It is giving flimsy reasons as an afterthought to delay the possession process. Clearly, it is under pressure from some influential body.”The apparent tussle over land has blocked the already-delayed possession for the PCI, the largest journalists’ club in India. It was allotted the prime plot for a new club in central Delhi by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Since then, however, the deal between the government and the PCI has found more than one roadblock. First, shortage of funds forced the PCI to delay its payments. It took more than ten years for the club to pay an amount of around Rs 3 crore to the ministry in 2014. But it was not given possession then as one BJP MP and the then NHAI chairperson were staying in the bungalows built on the plot. When a new PCI union was elected in 2016, it enquired about the deal with the DLDO, only to be told that it had to pay another Rs 2.47 crore since the circle rates of the area had increased by this time. Although the PCI should not have been held accountable for this as it had paid the entire amount according to the existing circle rates in 2014, it agreed to the DLDO’s demand to avoid a long-winding legal tussle. It has been raising funds since then and eventually paid the entire amount in June 2018. Yet, it looks like the PCI will have to continue to wait for this latest angle to be sorted out.
