Bhubaneswar, July 22: Getting a house or a plot of land from the development authority may be a dream for common people, but a person can manage more than one only if he or she happens to be someone with enormous clout.

Ruling BJD legislator Pranab Kumar Balbantaray managed the feat of getting two houses from much before he became an MLA. It is another matter that he happens to be the son of former BJD minister and present Rajya Sabha member Kalpataru Das.

Balabantray, who won his maiden election earlier this year, got one house allotted in his name and the other for his company, Balabanataray Transport and Mineral (Pvt Ltd), for which, too, he himself was the applicant.

The name of Balabantray figures in the list of 29 such allottees given to the state government by accountant general in a letter he wrote earlier this month to commissioner-cum-secretary of the housing and urban development.

The list names people, who have been given more than one house or plot by the BDA. Rules state that a person, who has been allotted a house or a plot of land by the authority either in his name or in the name of his spouse, automatically becomes ineligible for allotment of a second house or another plot.

But, Balabantaray took possession of the two houses within nine days of each other. While the first one allotted to his company on his application was taken possession of on June 13, 2011, the second one was taken over by him on June 21 the same year. Incidentally, both the houses are in the same housing complex.

On being contacted, Balbantray said: “I had applied for the house as a director of my company and I got it through lottery. The second house in my name has been allotted under discretionary quota.”

The accountant general also criticised the discretionary quota, saying that audit scrutiny in the 10 test-checked housing schemes had revealed that identification of allottees under the discretionary quota was arbitrary as the criteria were not specified and applications for allotment were made on a plain paper without any supporting documents.

In eight housing schemes of the development authority, of 249 applications for allotment under the discretionary quota, 129 applicants were favoured though there was no clear pre-defined criterion for such allotment, thus making the entire exercise “arbitrary” and “non-transparent”.

Though the accountant general detected these cases in 2012, the government has taken no action for cancellation prompting the auditing authority to dash off a letter to the housing and urban development secretary earlier this month.

“As the government did not give any compliance report, we have sent the names of all the violators to the department,” said a senior official in the accountant general’s office.

The housing and urban development department confirmed the receipt of the letter. Sources said the department would like a vigilance probe into the alleged irregularities.

“We know there is a clamour for vigilance probe. An initial discussion on the issue has already been held between the accountant general and the chief secretary,” said a state government official.

Vice chairperson of the development authority Krishan Kumar said: “The process of identifying the violators has begun. We have already cancelled two allotments.”

In eight other cases of the irregularities taking place in the development authority-sponsored schemes, houses were provisionally allotted in the Prachi Enclave Phase II under the discretionary quota in November 2001 even before the scheme was launched in September 2002.