ACAUT has accused the state Finance (Budget & Monitoring Cell) and PWD department for resorting to “blatant corruption” by way of releasing a whopping amount of Rs 5709.94 lakhs (2016 & 2017) for construction of a single bridge over River Tizit on Mon-Tizit Road.
ACAUT media cell said an amount of Rs 2854.97 lakh was released on April 17, 2017 under “Non Developmental” against construction of the same bridge and that the drawal limit of the sanction was valid till April 20, 2017.
However, it said another drawal authority of the same amount for the same project was released amounting to Rs 2854.97 lakh on May 29, 2017, mentioning that the amount release order was issued in supersession of the earlier order dated April 17, 2017.
When the first amount of Rs 28.54 crore was allowed to be drawn on or before April 20, ACAUT said the Finance department issuing such belated supersession order has raised doubts. This points to blatant corruption since the so-called supersession order in effect had allowed two withdrawals amounting to Rs. 57,09,94,000 crore, ACAUT stated.
ACAUT also expressed surprise that the project which was under EE PWD (R&B) Mon, the drawal authority was instead issued in favour of EE PWD (R&B) Kohima South division. This itself was enough proof that the bill was totally fictitious, ACAUT alleged.
ACAUT said it has never heard of such a scheme called “Non-Developmental” under which the two release orders were issued– April 17 and May 29, 2017.
As per RTI informations, expenditures are incurred under Non-Plan/State Plan/CSS etc. but “Non-Developmental” is a new term coined by the authorities to simply fool the public and draw public money, ACAUT stated.
If Rs 5709.94 crore were the total project cost for one single bridge, ACAUT said it wondered whether the government was trying to construct a ‘Golden Bridge’ in an area where the road condition was one of the worst in the state. The government drawing fictitious bills over the same project repeatedly is a criminal offense, it added.
It further went on cite the case where an amount of Rs 1251.90 lakh was released on October 20, 2016 against clearance of pending bills for “Construction of 34.00M Long Steel Concrete Composite bridge over river Tikang on Mon-Tizit Road” . It said the clearance of pending bills would indicate that the construction of the bridge was completed.
However, ACAUT said if the clearance of pending bills alone could amount to more than Rs. 12 crore then the earlier amount paid for construction of the bridge could well run into hundreds of crores of rupees.
Asserting that it was beyond tolerance to accept such corrupt activities, ACAUT has put forth several demands to be disclosed within one week in public domain over various issues:
1. To give the names of the contractor/firm, total cost of the project, date of commencement of project and total amount released so far, including project work for improvement of Road from City Tower Jn to DC court Jn Dimapur where almost 20 crore rupees was released.
2. Names of those officials and individuals involved in the processing and passing the project and payment.
3. Name of the officers in Planning and Finance department involved in processing and clearing the drawal authorities.
4. PWD to justify incurring of such a huge amount for a single bridge.
If the authorities fail to satisfactorily clarify the gross anomalies in the public domain, the people of Nagaland would have no choice but to conclude that public funds were siphoned off, ACAUT said adding, it would also be compelled to lodge an FIR with the police.
ACAUT has therefore asked the chief minister to immediately freeze the amounts released against the projects to the so-called contractor/firm.
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