[Resolved]  Indian Railway Welfare Organization — Refund of deposited money for withdrawal from Housing project

Dear Sir,

Sub: Realization of our deposited money towards membership of IRWO.
Ref: Dwelling Unit (Type-I & III) in Rail Vihar, Asansol Project, West Bengal.

With profound respect and humble submission, we the undersigned petitioners beg to lay down the following facts for your kind perusal and needful action.
The undersigned are Railway men, applied for purchase of dwelling units’ type A-1 & A-3 at Rail Vihar, Asansol Project, West Bengal being constructed by Indian Railway Welfare Organization (IRWO) whose corporate office at Rly Complex, Shivaji Bridge, New Delhi-11001, and Ph[protected].IRWO has been set up as a register society to provide houses for serving and retired railway men at all India level purely as a social welfare measure on No profit no loss basis.

The history of the case in concise is that:
We became the member of Indian Railway Welfare Organization (IRWO) in the year 2002 for housing scheme at Asansol project and paid land cost in the year 2004 and also IRWO distributed a brochure with payment schedule. Tentative cost of type A1 & A3 was Rs.4.75 lakhs & Rs.10.9 lakhs respectively. As per schedule of payment of IRWO, we have paid Rs 3.15 lakhs for A1 & Rs.5.85 lakhs for A3 dwelling unit in favour of IRWO which cover fifth installment. It was assumed that dwelling units will be handed over by March-2007.
But IRWO could not keep their work due to their administrative inefficiency and lack of interest to the project as it is far away from Metro cities and there was no progress of work. After 2 years a letter was sent by IRWO/NDLS on dated 29.11.06 with huge escalation of cost of the dwelling unit & cost of type A1 & A3 reached to Rs.6.65 lakhs & Rs.14.95 lakhs respectively. But IRWO was given the option that if any allottee desires to withdraw his allotment due to enhancement of cost of dwelling units, it would be considered without any deduction and full amount to be refunded to the allottee. Subsequently, several allottees had applied for refund and the refund have been paid back to the allottees without any deduction.
Again a letter was sent from IRWO/NDLS on dated 5th June, 2008 for 25% escalation of dwelling unit and the revised cost was beyond our capacity. We could not manage to collect any information from IRWO office when this project will be completed and handed over to allottees.IRWO did not bother to communicate or interact with the allottees.
Hence, we applied for withdrawal our membership from the project and to refund our deposited money on November, 2008.
After a long time, Managing Director/IRWO/NDLS vide letter No. IRWO/DF/ASN/WD/Refund/Pt.I dated 5.06.09 intimated that huge deduction(Rs.59, 737for A1 & Rs.1, 26, 0000 for A3) from the total amount deposited as per para 20.3 and also the actual refund will be made to us by realizing the same from the new allottees. Although GM/IRWO/East zone has requested to Managing Director/Finance, IRWO/New Delhi for refund the full deposited money paid by the allottee.This para 20.3 has not been stipulated in the Brochure supplied to us on January, 2002.According to the Brochure supplied to us, deduction limited to Rs.10, 000/- for A1 & Rs.20, 000/- for A3 and refund will be made to us by realizing the same from the new allottees. But IRWO in any stage could not keep their work.
It is also surprising to note that in the previous instance where 11 numbers of allottees were also withdrawn from the Asansol project after paying 5th installment, IRWO/NDLS have returned full amount vide letter No. IRWO/DF/Asansol/Refund dated 6.05.08. In this case IRWO has not applied any rules regarding refund of money. Hence, we should also not to be deprived being identical case in the same zone (Project) of IRWO/ASN and falls under the purview of same rules and regulations. In fact we are being harassed by IRWO and living with great anxiety to refund our hard earned money from IRWO.

i)We, the allottees are not responsible from any aspect as we have paid our installments as per schedule and work at site is directly attributed to IRWO not the allottees.
ii)We have withdrawn our membership due to huge escalation of cost (50%) in two phases that is due to poor and dilatory progress of work by IRWO. We are paying the bank interest for the project throughout five (5) years. But IRWO did not pay any attention to refund money adapting dilly-dallying tactics.
iii)There is a provision of collecting penalty due to delay payment, but there is no penalty due to delay finish of the project by IRWO.
iv)We have lost the interest of our own money and paid huge interest to the bank in five (05) years for bank-loan. Nobody is care for that.
v)It is the very rare instance that seven (07) year passed still IRWO cannot make only 70 dwelling units.
vi)The equalization charges have to pay by the new allottees, whereas no interest will be paid to the old allottees of their deposited money.

In view of the facts as enumerated above, we request your good self to kindly bring it to the notice of the Authority of Rly Board and the Managing Director/IRWO/NDLS through your media so that we can help us to get the refund of our money as early as possible without any deduction.

With our best regards.
Name Refundable Amount(Rs.) ASN Reg.No. Pri.Reg.No.
Sri Sadhan Ch. Das (Retd) 3, 10, 000/- 085 126030
Ph- [protected]
Sri Apurba Chatterjee
Ph[protected] 5, 85, 000/- 020 128590

Sri Arun Pan
Ph- [protected],
St no-65, Qrs no-26A,
Chittaranjan, North Area,
Burdwan-713331. 3, 15, 000/- 115 140201

Sri Swapan Das
Ph- [protected] 3, 15, 000/- 013 137009

Sri Gopal Ch. Ghosh
Ph- [protected] 3, 15, 000/- 121 140206