NPRAAF alleges ‘impropriety in utilisation’ of NRDWP fund

Dimapur, July 17 (EMN): Citing answers provided by Nagaland’s department of Public Health Engineering to a Right to Information query, the Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) has stated that a National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) project in Tseminyu is incomplete despite the department’s claim to the contrary. “NPRAAF has physically verified the drinking water project under Tseminyu town which was sufficiently funded under NRDWP under various heads. The department chart reads the project as completed. However the project is incomplete despite adequate funding by the ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation. The chart also reads that Rupees 250000 (two lakh fifty thousand) was sanctioned to a union at Kohima during 2015-16 under NRDWP drinking water scheme, which is out-rightly in contravention to GOI guidelines therefore is illegal,” read a press release from the group on Tuesday. Copies of the department’s response to the RTI were also made available to the local newspapers. Despite ‘impropriety in utilisation of fund by the state government,’ it stated, the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has sanctioned further INR 17,36,21,000 (seventeen crore thirty-six lakh and twenty-one thousand) under 2018-19. It also stated that the group had filed the RTI application on May 7. The department failed to furnish the details “even after lapse of mandate period under RTI Act,” it informed. After ‘inordinate delay’ the department could produce ‘vaguely prepared chart, scheme-wise expenditure statement on utilization of amount from 2015-17’ only on July 14, according to the NPRAAF.