Monday Musing
[ Amar Sangno ]
They say that where money flows, corruption shadows its path. The land compensation scams in the Trans-Arunachal Highway and the Frontier Highway projects is a classic case of: where money goes, corruption follows. All these national highway projects have been marred by multi-crore land compensation scams, resulting in inordinate delay in execution of the projects.
Of late, the ghost of the Trans-Arunachal Highway land compensation scam has reappeared in the Frontier Highway in the most spectacular fashion. The Lada-Sarli Frontier Highway stretch threw up major anomalies, leading to arrest of the district land revenue and survey officer (DLRSO) Takam Kechak and three others accused in connection with the scam.
The Frontier Highway is an ambitious road project that aims to connect the uninhabited areas of upper Arunachal along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to boost frontier communication, enabling security forces’ mobilisation during any eventuality or national emergency, and also to improve tourism along the inaccessible Himalayan range. It is believed to have been conceptualised by western Arunachal parliamentarian and union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju in 2004. However, it only started taking shape after the BJP came into power in 2014.
The total length of the Frontier Highway is 1,840 kilometres, and the total sanctioned length is 1,280 kilometres, out of which 566 kilometres would be executed by the state public works department, 387 kilometres under the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) and 327 kilometres under the NHIDCL. The total sanctioned amount is 28,714.98 crore.
The MoRTH has reportedly sanctioned Rs 241 crore (including administrative exigency) as the land compensation amount for Package 1 to Package 5, popularly dubbed the Lada-Sarli Frontier Highway stretch.
Apparently, the Lada-Sarli land compensation scam is a premeditated and systematic loot of state and central coffers. The current proposed highway alignment of Packages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, which runs north-south following the Pachuk valley, defeats the very concept of a frontier road. From a layman’s perspective, Package 1 to 5 of the Lada-Sarli Frontier Highway should be called an inter-village connectivity highway instead of a frontier road.
It is believed that the actual alignment of the Lada-Sarli stretch of the Frontier Highway mostly passes through uninhabited areas straight from Nafra-Dibrick-Sachung-Tawe-Waii-Lamnio-Sario-Saria-Jayang-Kase and Sarli.
Who changed the original proposed alignment?
It is said that, as per the terms of reference for the Frontier Highway, the road should pass along the LAC within a 100-kilometre radius.
The Empowered Committee on Border Infrastructure (ECBI) on 5 September, 2016 recommended to the MoRTH to “initiate steps for survey works and detail project report (DPR) preparation of the proposed Frontier Highway, as per the alignment finalised by the department of border management (DoBM) in consultation with the ministry of defence (MoD) and the state government, after approval of the competent authority.”
The DoBM in its letter to the home ministry on 5 July, 2018 reported following obligatory points of strategic importance to be connected through a peripheral road along the Indo-Tibet-Myanmar border with the intent to arrest population migration from border areas: Nafra-Dibrick-Sachung-Lada-Sarli-Huri-Parsi Parlo-Tali-Taliha-Siyum-Mechukha-Tato-Monigong-Bile-Migging-Tuting-Singa-Anelye-Hunli-Hayuliang.
Going by the scale of anomalies in the property assessment of the Lada-Sarli stretch, it would not be wrong to say that the scam was hatched from the very initial stage of the alignment process to loot central funds. It has been reported that out of Rs 224 crore released by the MoRTH for land compensation, more than Rs 100 crore was paid against bogus and inflated bills, allegedly prepared by officials involved in the scam.
It’s also alleged that the tainted DLRSO managed to complete the land acquisition process and property assessment survey for the entire 124-kilometre stretch in just one-and-a-half months, while the reverification teams on the ground could hardly cover a few kilometres in a week.
The legal hide and seek is on between the alleged accused whose names are under the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) scanner. Unverified sources in the ACB informed that more than Rs 9 crore has been recovered or frozen so far from the accounts of the accused.
Some of the land compensation-deprived people allege that the reassessment teams are deliberately covering up the tracks of the accused’s false bills while evaluating properties on the ground. However, officials deny this, stating that they are meticulously reviewing each record.
Now all eyes are on the government and the ACB to see whether the agency will double down on every accused by tracing each money trail and transaction record, or whether it will go soft on the accused. The game is on until the reverification team has completed the assessment.
