Garcha constructing college on illegally acquired land

LUDHIANA: For the last two years, former Punjab technical education minister Jagdish Singh Garcha, arrested by the Vigilance Bureau here on Saturday morning, has been constructing his own engineering college spread over 35 acres of land, at Bhuta village, 10 km from here.
Villagers said that Garcha, who originally hailed from Dhandari village, had got the land registered in his name during the consolidation of holdings in 1963.At that time there was a dera here inhabited by mahants, said a villager, Parminder.
One building has already come up on this land, alleged to have been got illegally, while three more are to be constructed, said Jarnail Singh, a supervisor at the site of construction.
Jarnail said that the construction work was going on at a hectic pace as Garcha wanted to start the session in March 2003. He did not provide an estimate as to how much money had been spent on the college, but said that the cost of the four buildings and the canteen would run into crores.
A fixed deposit receipt worth Rs. 90.50 lakh, which the Vigilance Bureau recovered from Garcha’s residence on Saturday, was in the name of Kehar Nam Education Society, which owns the college.
The society has Garcha’s brothers and other family members as trustees. Though the academic session is yet to begin and no fee has been collected so far, how the society has managed to possess so much money remains unanswered.
According to sources, Punjab Technical University has denied affiliation to the engineering college for the coming session. But looking at the pace at which the construction is going on, it does not seem so. Villagers said that the construction had stopped when the Congress took over.
The engineering college that Garcha is building.