‘Opposition-less a license to loot and burgle’
Dimapur, August 16 (EMN): The Kohima bench of the Guwahati High Court is stated to have observed during a recent hearing that Nagaland’s department of Roads & Bridges ought to “wake up and restore the condition of road and bridges in Nagaland.”
The information was contained in a press release issued by the Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC) on Tuesday. Besides information combed out through the Right to Information (RTI) mechanism already publicised, the press release included a few more of newer ones.
‘The Gauhati high Court, Kohima bench heard the 1st petition on R&B (department) today, the 16th of August, 2017,’ the NTC informed. ‘The court heard the learned council Advocate NM Jamir and on the interim directed the department of R&B to start implementation of the projects with the money drawn so far. The court maintained that the department of R&B should wake up and restore the condition of road and bridges in Nagaland.’
The developmental activities in Nagaland have come to a standstill not due to non-allocation of funds from the central government, the organisation stated.
According to the NTC, not less than ‘Rs.2355 crore, 38 lakh, and 64,000’ was drawn and utilised fully by 11 departments “purely for public distributions and infrastructural projects excluding departmental and establishment expenditures” even during the last one year, from April 2016 to March 2017, the press release asserted.
The NTC expressed serious concern that an “opposition less government” in Nagaland could bring ‘so much destruction and devastation to the system of governance where there is no more restriction or rules to be observed in the utilisation of funds.’ It has ‘made free’ for the elected representatives in connivance with bureaucrats to “burgle every sanction of money for public welfare.”
The politicians in authority and bureaucrats have teamed up to “loot the state exchequer, what one can think will be left for the welfare of the common man,” the organisation lamented.
Here, the organisation lamented that in spite of the “highest degree of corruption,” there was none to raise a voice for the public on the floor of the house “since 60 MLAs belong to ruling government and in absence of opposition, one or two NGOs and few concerned individuals are crying foul over the anti-people activities in various departments.”
These voices have failed to deter the authorities from looting public money, the NTC declared.
The only option for the concerned citizens is to seek justice from the court of law through PIL, it stated. The NTC has informed that two citizens ST Yapang and Odi Jamir volunteered to shoulder the job of filling PILs against 11 government departments ‘that has drawn crore on money without execution of works in the fields.’
Data was provided by the departments out of the RTI, the NTC stated. The organisation has expressed profound appreciation to the two social activists, calling their voluntary efforts for the suffering masses ‘rare and remarkable.’ The NTC has expressed supports to their endeavour and declared to “stand by them till justice is delivered to the suffering masses.”
A series of 11 PILs has been filed before the Gauhati High Court, Kohima bench by the two activists.
The departments against which the PILs were filed are PWD (Roads & Bridges ); Department of Social Welfare; Department of School Education; Food and Civil Supplies; Department of Rural Development, PHE, Planning and Coordination Department, Home Department(Police); Irrigation & Flood Control; Department of Health and Family Welfare; and Urban Development Department.
