One of the last orders passed by the Amarinder Singh government was to allow sale of a piece of land which had been originally bought at throwaway prices to build a housing society for Punjab MLAs.

Just a few days later, the 130 MLA and MP members of the society —- including nine ministers in the current Badal government—- find themselves sitting on a gold mine.

The 22-acre plot in Kansal village, which was granted Notified Area Committee (NAC) status only in 2005, legalising all illegal constructions, has been bought by Tata Housing Development Company (THDC) for Rs 106 crore, leaving the members up to 12 times richer.

Having paid at a rate of Rs 15 lakh for 500 sq yards, the MLAs and MPs will now get Rs 82.5 lakh each apart from a 2,250-sq ft flat.

There are few locations around Chandigarh better than this plot, flanked as it is by the Kansal forest on the foothills of the Shivaliks and the Sukhna lake. Earlier, Kansal was part of Chandigarh’s periphery and no urbanisation was permitted here, but the 2005 order changed that. The market price at Kansal even now is not as high as what the Tatas paid for the MLA land, with 500 sq yards available for Rs 50 lakh. The four BJP and five Akali ministers —- in a Cabinet of 17 —- aren’t the only ones who have made a killing from the Tata deal. The list cuts across party lines, including the Congress, CPI and others. The prominent names include members of the Badal family, BJP MLA Manoranjan Kalia, Congress MP and Amarinder’s wife Preneet Kaur, Tejpratap Singh and Jagir Kaur.

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