Vigilance comm. asked to investigate Finance’s sanctions

Dimapur, Sep. 22 (EMN):  An organisation representing a grievance against suspected financial mismanagement by the Finance department has brushed aside the ‘confusing’ replies of the latter. Rather, the group, the Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF), has sought the Vigilance Commission to order an inquiry into the matter. The NPRAAF has appealed to the commission to investigate what it called dubious ‘DAs' issued by the department. “We reiterate our appeal to the State Vigilance Commission to conduct an inquiry into all these doubtful DAs issued by the FD under Article 275 (1) since the total amount released under Article 275 (1) during 2016-17 has reached Rs 96.03 crore {inclusive of the double drawal authorities which the FD said was under Article 275 (1),” the group stated in a press release on Monday. “Funds released for repair and renovations may also  be taken into account for inquiry since the amount released could cross several hundreds of crores of rupees.” The organisation expressed displeasure that Instead of responding to points raised by the NPRAAF, the Finance department was “trying to confuse the public by beating around the bush just for the sake of a rebuttal resulting in a hollowed (sic) response.” The NPRAAF raised issues about ‘double drawal,’ the CM Corpus Fund and Article 275 (1), the group stated. However, the Finance department is ‘ignoring all issues’ and concentrating only on “double drawal and that too without disclosing the GoI (government of India) sanction number,” the press release stated. “If the double drawal authority was issued as per funds received from GoI under Article 275 (1), why is the FD not being able to disclose the GoI sanction number?” The finance department was stated to have released another Rs 12. 63 crore in ‘ten drawal authorities’ during 2016-17 dated December 9 2016; February 24, 2017; March 6 2017; March 17 2017; four different DAs on March 18 2017; March 20 2017; and March 30 2017. “All these DAs relate to repair/renovations, retaining walls, boundary walls etc out of which more than 90% of the DAs was spent for Planning Colony, Kohima,” the press release stated. Without any satisfactory clarification either from the Finance department or Planning & Coordination department, the press release added, the NPRAAF will be compelled to take “stringent but democratic recourse” to arrive at the ‘logical conclusion into all these doubtful DAs.’