Chandigarh, Aug. 11 -- Having rolled out no new housing projects for nearly a decade, the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) has also failed to ensure proper handling of public funds, as revealed by documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. As per the balance sheets for 2022-23 and 2023-24, the board has not even finalised its accounts for 2023-24, providing only provisional data. The financial records show that the board has been holding on to stale cheques worth Rs.66 lakh, issued to various stakeholders years ago, but never encashed. The RTI reply also reveals long-pending unsettled staff advances to seven IAS officers, including Amar Nath, Ankur Garg, KS Wahi, late Mohanjit Singh and Varsha Joshi. The advances, ranging from Rs.5,000 to Rs.80,000, have remained outstanding for years. In one case, the board also owes Rs.21,000 to former IAS officer Bhupinder Singh. Financial data further shows that while the board's revenue fell from Rs.127 crore in 2022-23 to Rs.85 crore in 2023-24, certain expenditures ballooned. Diwali gift expenses rose from Rs.12.60 lakh in 2022-23 to Rs.14.63 lakh in 2023-24, and conveyance costs surged from Rs.55 lakh to Rs.90 lakh in a single year, despite no new housing projects. RTI activist RK Garg, who procured the data, alleged that these figures pointed to serious financial mismanagement. He called for a five-year audit of the board's accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). "The public's money needs to be safeguarded," he said. Repeated attempts to reach CHB secretary Akhil Kumar for comment went unanswered. Established in 1976, with the primary objective of providing reasonably priced and good quality housing in Chandigarh, CHB had last successfully launched a housing scheme in 2016, when it had offered 200 two-bedroom flats in Sector 51 for Rs.69 lakh each. With no successful project over the past decade, the board is struggling to justify its existence....