ITANAGAR, 12 Feb: Former Seijosa MLA Hemu Techi made several allegations against state BJP president Biyuram Wahge, who is also the sitting MLA of Pakke-Kessang assembly constituency.
Addressing mediaper-sons at the Arunachal Press Club here on Monday, Techi, who was accompanied by two panchayat leaders from the district, said that “there has been gross misuse of power and siphoning off of public funds,” and added that “the local MLA has his roots in the RSS and his elder brother is a retired chief engineer (CE) of the public works department.”
Techi alleged that “a complex plan was devised by the MLA to use his family members to siphon off funds issued by the North Eastern Council for construction of the 70-km Pakke-Seijosa-Itakhola road.”
He said that “a tender had been floated earlier, and a company under M/s PRL Projects & Infrastructure Ltd and Gepong (JV) were asked to quote very low. This company was to be ignored due to its very low quote as per rules. However, it was allowed for JV against norms, despite the un-performable low quote.”
“Despite their being a local joint venture partners, the project was further sub- contracted to a company from Hyderabad under M/s DRB Infrastructure Pvt Ltd,” Techi claimed.
He further alleged that the retired CE, the MLA, and his wife “made unreasonable demands on M/s DRB Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, which was competent, with well-equipped machineries, and was executing the project professionally.”
“The MLA and then chief engineer together roped in a company named M/s Yumiko Global Infra Tech Pvt Ltd, whose director is one Roni Lishi, and subsequently, the MLA’s wife signed the sub-contract agreement to execute the project as its managing director.”
“Specifically, 10 major bridges were converted into 6×6-metre box culverts and many slab culverts into single-lane traffic, in spite of the requirement for them to be of 7.5 metres width as per the national highway specifications.
“Although out of 70 kms, eight kms have been reduced due to overlapping national highway road construction from the Pakke-Kessang end, a tender was floated for 62 kms as the actual
plan stipulated the length from the Seijosa inner line check gate as 0.00 km as the take-up point to Pakke-Kessang national highway connecting point,” Techi said.
“The result of cost-cutting and changing of specifications as per tender is that the road has become impossible to navigate at several points, causing traffic congestion,” he said, adding that “all this is at public cost.”
