Officials say ministry of RD guideline says fund will not be released unless all job card holders maintain bank accounts
Dimapur, Jan. 9 (EMN): Close on the heels of Peren District Village Development Board Association refuting the claim of Rural Development department that it had cleared the grant-in-aid (GIA) fund for the block, Mon District VDB Association and two MLAs from Dimapur have also said that the districts (Mon and Dimapur) are yet to receive the fund.
The department of Rural Development had claimed earlier that the grant-in-aid fund for the blocks under Peren and Dimapur districts and some blocks under Mon have been cleared, while the remaining blocks are yet to complete the required formalities.
The Mon District VDB Association clarified through a statement on Wednesday that the district has not received the GIA fund for 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2017-18 till date. It said the claims made by some officers from Rural Development department on the release of GIA are false.
Meanwhile, MLA from Dimapur III Azheto Zhimomi and MLA from Dimapur II Moatoshi Longkumer have also issued a joint statement claiming that Dimapur District Rural Development Agencies (DRDA) has not received grant-in-aid for 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2017-18 which has been confirmed by DRDA project director, and Deputy Commissioner of Dimapur who is also the chairman of the district VDB.
Terming the claims made by RD assistant director Hisinle Kent and RD director Imlimeren Jamir that the fund has been released to Dimapur, Peren and Mon districts as “false and misleading,” the two legislators said the two officers blamed the VDBs for the delay in the release of the scheme by accusing it of not submitting proposals instead of throwing light on how the INR 96 crore fund would be implemented in the state.
However, Imlimeren Jamir told Eastern Mirror that Nagaland could not fulfil the timeline scheme given by the ministry of Rural Development because of the criteria that requires all job card holders to have a bank account.
“Out of 74 blocks in the state, 32 blocks does not bank facilities. Even for the remaining 42 blocks that have banking privilege, almost all the banks are located in the district headquarters. So most villagers do not want to take the trouble of coming to the district headquarters to open back account,” said Jamir.
He maintained that the funds will not be released unless each and every job card holders maintain bank accounts according to the guideline laid by the ministry of Rural Development, which is not easy for a state like Nagaland.
“But the ministry have not seen our ground realities. Even if the state says they have a problem, they don’t believe it. It simply says that there is only one guideline in the country and that there are no exceptions. In the public sector, people may not understand, but that is the real drawbacks,” said Jamir.
He went on to say that the fund was released till last year and that such restriction was not there until the beginning of April 1 2018.
