The Lada-Sarli Frontier Highway is part of a strategic project aimed at improving road connectivity along the India-China border. But over the last few months, the road project has been making news because of alleged compensation scam.
The All Nyishi Youth Association’s (ANYA) East Kameng district unit has filed an FIR against several senior district officials for their alleged involvement in a multi-crore scam related to the Lada-Sarli Frontier Highway project.
Those named include Deputy Commissioner Himanshu Nigam, District Land Revenue & Settlement Officer Takam Kechak, District Horticulture Officers CK Tayum and Miren Perme, and Divisional Forest Officer Abhinav Kumar.
The FIR alleges that the disbursement process lacked proper verification of beneficiaries, leading to irregular and unauthorised payments. Several individuals who were not legally entitled to compensation allegedly received large sums, causing wrongful loss to the government and wrongful gain to private persons.
A fact-finding committee inspection uncovered numerous discrepancies and procedural irregularities in the compensation disbursement process.
The total sanctioned amount for Packages 4 and 5 of the project was Rs 109.65 crore. Of this, Rs 77.20 crore was reportedly disbursed to identified land-affected persons, while Rs 32.45 crore remains unaccounted for and without supporting documentation.
A specific case was cited under Package 4, Serial No 219, where compensation was paid for nonexistent assets (WRC/homestead at Chainage No 85062), but no development or tangible structures were found on site.
The Arunachal Frontier Highway, connecting Bomdila in the northwest of the state to Vijaynagar in the southeast, is estimated to be about 800 km long. The total length of the highway will be 1,748 km.
In February last year, Rs 2,098.81 crore was sanctioned for the construction of the Bomdila-Nafra-Lada section covering 78.3 kilometres, and Rs 279.91 crore for the 15.4 kilometre-long Lada-Sarli section (Package 7) of NH 913.
Many road projects have been affected due to inflated compensation amounts and, at times, bogus payments for nonexistent infrastructure, leading to delays and disruption in construction.
One would have assumed that a road project closely monitored by both the Centre and the state would escape the fate of other road projects and related compensation scandals. However, even the Lada-Sarli road, a strategically important route, has not been spared from greed and inefficiency.
All assessments must be redone, the compensation amounts readjusted according to merit, and the guilty must be punished.