Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 22 Dec: The All East Kameng District Students’ Union (AEKDSU) has threatened to enforce a 36-hour district bandh if the state government fails to suspend all the officers involved in misappropriation of the funds for the multi-crore Seppa-Chayang Tajo NEC road project by 23 January next year.
Along with other student organisations from the district, the AEKDSU on Thursday staged a peaceful protest rally from the Akashdeep complex to IG Park here to make its demand known.
AEKDSU president Chakang Yangda told reporters that funds meant for the construction of the 81-km Seppa-Chayang Tajo NEC road were “usurped.” He said that a chargesheet should be filed against all the officials found involved in the Rs 172-crore scam.
Yangda said that the Special Investigation Cell (SIC) of the state police has been entrusted with investigating the case but there has been no progress or outcome to date.
However, earlier, SIC SP Anant Mittal had told reporters that the chargesheet had already been filed in the matter.
“The AEKDSU has been appealing to the state government to expedite the construction of the Seppa-Chayang Tajo road at the earliest. Instead, the government is only issuing verbal assurance without any work done. This is the reason why the union is compelled to resort to a democratic movement,” Yangda said.
He said that the other demands of the union include “immediate floating of tender against Rs 19.92 crore which was released under special assistance from the state capital expenditure for the construction and improvement of the Seppa-Chayang Tajo road; and immediate termination of the erring contractor and initiation of a departmental inquiry.”
Earlier, the AEKDSU had lodged a complaint with the SIC against four persons – local MLA Hayeng Mangfi, PWD Western Zone CE Tayor Taloh, EE Gemi Jilen, and AE Dodum Dada – over the misappropriation of funds.
“The SIC should immediately register the case on the basis of the FIR. The state government should also start a departmental inquiry against the officials of the executing department,” Yangda said.
Meanwhile, in response, the PWD western zone chief engineer said that “the original name of work of the scheme remains the same; only additional nomenclature was added under the sub-head.”
“The department felt it necessary to do it as many stretches of the road and structures of work already completed for which payment were made to the contractors were washed out or damaged during monsoon season,” the CE added.
The CE further said that “additional nomenclature under the sub-head title was added to avoid future complications of overlapping of chainages of the work with original works,” and denied that there was any attempt to siphon off fund.
“There is no question of siphoning off of the fund in the name of restoration as the scope of work is fixed as per technical sanction and no payment was done to any agency without work,” the CE said.
The SIC conducted a preliminary inquiry into the allegation of misappropriation of funds by Gammon India in the construction of the road, and registered the matter as a regular case [u/s 120 (B)/420/465/471/409 IPC, r/w Section 13 (1) HO (d) & 13 (2) PC Act, 1988] on 7 August, 2019.
