Chandigarh: At a time when rental prices of private houses have skyrocketted in the city over the years, the UT administration has turned out to be a big-hearted landlord, charging Haryana and Punjab Raj Bhawans merely Rs 150-190 per house. The administration has provided 99 houses to Haryana Raj Bhawan and 136 houses to Punjab Raj Bhawan for their staff.
As per the information sourced under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Haryana pays an average Rs 156.08 per house as license fee (rent). Similarly, Punjab government pays around Rs 183.58 per house.

Haryana Raj Bhawan, which is allotted houses of various categories from type VIII to XIII, is paying just Rs 15452 per month as licence fee for 99 houses.
Under the Haryana Raj Bhawan Pool, five type-VIII houses, 8 type-IX, three type-X, 17 type-XI, 13 type-XII and 53 type-XIII have been allotted. The licence fee ranges from Rs 103 per month per house to Rs 406 per month per house, depending upon the category.
For April to June period, the Haryana Raj Bhawan paid an amount of Rs 46,356 for 99 houses under its pool.
Punjab Raj Bhawan which has 136/137 houses is paying Rs 20,194 per month (183.58 per house) for 110 houses only. Punjab Raj Bhawan, for February to June 2024, paid Rs 92,420 for 110 houses.
R K Garg, convenor, RTI Chandigarh, who accessed the information, said, “After receiving the information under RTI, it is observed that while UT gets peanuts every month that too after many months, and both Haryana and Punjab are earning a whopping amount as HRA from not only Raj Bhawan employees but other employees too.”
All these houses are maintained by UT which is also eating into major budget of engineering deptt of UT and MC as well.
“Needless to say, that from the tender portal, a large number of tenders are only for repair and maintenance of houses allotted to other states,” said Garg in a letter to the UT adviser.
“The UT administration should look into issue and initiate action to calculate how much it is spending on repair and maintenance on all such houses and what it is earning thereafter,” Garg added.