Govt writes off rent, gives Meira Kumar second official bungalow for 25 years

The house may have landed her in controversy but the Central government not only waived a bill of Rs 1.98 crore, but also allowed Speaker Meira to hold on to an official bungalow in Lutyens Delhi for the next 25 years.

The house at 6, Krishna Menon Marg was finally allocated to the Babu Jagjivan Ram National Foundation by the Directorate of Estates from August 2013 to July 2038, The Times of India reported.

The foundation was started in the memory of Kumar’s father, former deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram, in March 2008, and has reportedly been operating out of the house in which he lived until his demise in 1986.

Kumar was living at the house until she was moved to the official Speaker’s residence at 20 Akbar Road, but despite that she didn’t officially move out of her original home.

The fact that Kumar was holding on to two homes in perhaps the country’s most elite area was revealed in a response to an RTI application . Kumar had applied for the bungalow to be allocated to the foundation in her father’s memory but pending the approval of authorities, didn’t vacate it.

She was also handed a bill of Rs 1.98 crore as pending rent for occupying the house despite losing entitlement over it and Kumar had issued a statement saying they had not only vacated the house but the civic body had also cut off power and water supply to it.

However, according to ToI, the rent has now been waived and said that the original statement about the pending rent was made under ‘RTI pressure’.