BJP members protest against the land scam and demand a CBI probe in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 26: Revenue minister Bijayshree Routray today sought to clear the air over allegations that he had constructed his house on the land allotted to his wife for setting up a nursing home in the city.

Routray's residential address figures in the list of 13 individuals and organisations who had got land at a cheap rate from the general administration department between 1981 and 2009 to set up hospitals or nursing homes.

The director of medical education and training (DMET) had found that 44 individuals were provided with land but the department did not find any hospital or nursing home at 13 locations.

“The land was allotted to my wife, Dr Jyoti Routray, in 1986. My wife set up a clinic that ran almost five years. At that time, we used to stay in an asbestos house in the Chintamaniswar area. Since the clinic did not become much popular, we built a house and shifted there,” the minister today said.

Citing the reason for his wife’s clinic failing to take off, he said a big nursing home had came up near her clinic around the same time and began attracting patients. Consequently, very few of them came to his wife. So she closed it down.

Dr Jyoti Routray, a medical practitioner, was allotted 0.124 acre (plot No. A-117) near the Sriya Film Complex in 1987 for Rs 61,984.

Routray said he had only one plot in Bhubaneswar. “I am not a land-grabber. I don’t have 20 or 25 plots in the city. If I return the house, will you give me shelter? We stay with Dr Routray. Will you be happy if I stay on the platform? What crime have I committed?” he said.

Routray pointed out that he was not even a legislator when the land was allotted. “I was elected as an MLA in 1990 from Basudevpur and my wife had got the land on merit,” he said.

The state government, which allotted land to individuals and institutions at subsidised rates to set up hospitals and nursing homes, was not aware that the allottees had changed the land use purpose. These 13 individuals and organisations have been allotted nearly eight acres of land in prime areas of the city.

The current market value of this land would be around Rs 80 crore.

In a letter to the health secretary, the director of medical education and training said: “Out of 44 allotees, 21 are running their nursing homes and hospitals on the land provided by the general administration department. The whereabouts of the other 13 allotees are not known to this directorate.”

The DMET has begun a probe into the status of these medical institutions after the health and family welfare department on July 24 notified the names of the 44 allotees who got the land at a subsidised rate and were asked to provide free medical treatment to the patients under the BPL category. As the issue is snowballing into another controversy, the state health department today refused to comment on the issue.