Haridwar Land Scam: CM Dhami’s biggest action so far! A dozen senior officers including IAS got caught in corruption

A very big news is coming out from Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has taken the toughest stand so far under his ‘zero tolerance’ policy against corruption in the much talked about and VIP garbage dumping yard scam of Haridwar Municipal Corporation. Chief Minister Dhami has directly fired the threat of dismissal on the corrupt officials involved in this mega scam. In view of the seriousness of the matter, an important file for completely terminating the services of the then Municipal Commissioner and IAS officer Varun Chaudhary, i.e. removing him from the job, has been sent to the Central Government.

Last Friday, this very tough decision was finally approved by the Uttarakhand government level. ‘Major Punishment’ i.e. very strict and long penalty has also been recommended against the then DM of Haridwar, Kamendra Singh, who was caught in the web of this entire scam. Under this, either Kamendra Singh will be directly demoted or he will also be shown the way out of government employment forever.

Apart from this, the then SDM of Haridwar Ajayveer Singh also had to pay a heavy price for his actions. A censure entry has been registered against him in the service book and Ajayveer’s three annual increments have been stopped with immediate effect. Since both the senior most officers belong to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre, the Uttarakhand government has sent a complete written report to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Central Government for further strict legal action.

Land worth Rs 15 crores was bought for Rs 54 crores, this is how the game happened

Now let us tell you what this whole Sarai land scam was and how public money was looted in it. Actually, 2.3070 hectares of land was to be purchased in Haridwar for garbage disposal of the city. Investigation revealed that the actual and market value of this government land was only around Rs 15 crore. But the corrupt officers along with the land mafia formed a strong syndicate and by manipulating the papers, bought this land in the name of the government for Rs 54 crore.

Through this vicious trick, a huge sum of Rs 39 crore was directly defrauded to the government treasury. The biggest and shocking game in the Sarai land scam was to convert agricultural land into commercial category overnight. Generally, to get the land use change of any land under ‘Section 143’ in Uttarakhand, a common man has to visit offices for months and grind his heels. But in this scam, with the kindness of the officers, the entire agricultural land was converted into commercial category within just seven days and the files were moved from one table to another in record time.

Second surgical strike of Dhami government, long army of officers in JD

Let us tell you that last year on June 3, 2025, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had conducted the first major surgical strike in this matter. Then on the basis of preliminary investigation, seven people including the then DM, Municipal Commissioner and SDM were suspended in one stroke. Now after the detailed and final investigation report, all these allegations of corruption have been found to be 100% true, after which this major action has been taken.

A very large army of small and big officials are involved in this wave of corruption. The then Administrator Municipal Corporation Karmendra Singh, Municipal Commissioner Varun Chaudhary and SDM Ajayveer Singh were the main masterminds and characters of this entire illegal horse-trading. Along with these, senior finance officer Nikita Bisht and senior personal assistant Vicky have also been punished. Registrar Kanungo Rajesh Kumar and Chief Administrative Officer Kamal Das have also been found completely guilty in the heat of investigation.

Apart from this, the service extension of in-charge Assistant Municipal Commissioner Ravindra Dayal and estate clerk Vedpal has been directly terminated. The already suspended Executive Engineer in Charge Anand Mishrawan, Tax and Revenue Superintendent Laxmikant Bhatt and Junior Engineer DC Kandpal were also active parts of this corrupt syndicate. Sarai land scam has been recorded as the biggest and blackest stain in the administrative history of Uttarakhand. The entire layers of this game hidden in the government files have now been exposed to the public and it is expected that soon the final decision on the dismissal of these IAS officers will come from the Central Government.