SHILLONG, OCT 23: The Civil Society Women’s Organization (CSWO) today demanded the government to take action against alleged corrupt officials for releasing the funds without verifying the way road construction was carried out.
According to the organization, the government should also institute an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged corruption in the construction of the road.
The decision to demand for was taken after the CSWO recently conducted a spot inspection of the construction work for widening of a road – Sutnga-Sumer-Saipung in East Jaintia Hills District.
“Action should be taken against corrupt officials who have released the funds without verifying the way the construction was carried out,” CSWO president Agnes Kharshiing said in a statement.
Informing that an inspection was conducted along with the village heads, Kharshiing said they had physically verified the condition of the 3 km Sutnga Bye pass road and found that only about less than 500 metres has been constructed that too without following proper procedures for road construction especially when 1 crore for each kilometre is sanctioned.
Small vehicles cannot travel through the road, the CSWO informed adding that earlier on the police who had to travel for their inquiries and investigations got stuck in this road and could not move ahead nor move backwards as the road was very bad.
According to her, the police had taken the road thinking it would be faster but got stuck instead.
Kharshiing informed that through RTI’s file by the village headman of Sutnga S Daniel Lyngdoh, it is revealed that about 2.35 crores has been released for this road.
In addition to this an amount of 10 crores was sanctioned for the Sutnga –Sumer road from 3km to 22km, in East Jaintia hills in 2012-2013 which is shown to have been completed in the RTI, but the condition of the road is pathetic and surprising that funds were released without checking the status of the road, Kharshiing said.
Moreover, Kharshiing said in addition to this another 21 crores is being sanctioned over this same road this year, under the NLCPR, (Non Lapsable Central Pool of Resources) with a proposed plan to widen the road, paying no attention to the bad construction under the 10 crores sanction, that too within 2 years.
According to her, contractor S Sukhlain without taking permission from the land owners, bulldozed the lands and the village forest lands of the Sutnga Elaka for the widening of the road.
Further on verification of the internal roads in the village of Sutnga, for which 58 lacs was released out of about 81 lacs, it was observed that the roads were very poorly constructed, Kharshiing alleged.
“This clearly indicates corruption by officials of the PWD (NEC) division and as the funds are central funds, there is a need for a CBI Inquiry, to get to the bottom of such blatant large scale corruption of public funds,” she stated.
The CSWO lauded the steps taken by the headman Sutnga in filing an RTI seeking information and sharing with the members of the dorbar shnong the corruption of the PWD (NEC) division which has ignored providing sanction for the state road that passes through Sutnga Village from 0-3 km.- By Our Reporter
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