BJP leader and Tura MDC Bernard N. Marak has accused the ruling NPP of misusing over Rs 100 crore of funds meant for the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC).
“Our coalition partner NPP has led GHADC to bankruptcy. The NPP is funding their party with the GHADC money,” Marak said in a statement issued today.
“The amount sanctioned for the development of Garo Hills through the agreement signed by ANVC groups has been misappropriated to the extent that the GHADC was forced to divert around Rs 50 crore from the central fund for the salary. This violated the guidelines of NITI Ayog,” he added.
Stating that the signing of the Agreed Text for Settlement (ATS) by the ANVC and ANVC-B took place in Delhi in 2014, Marak said the agreement was intended to strengthen the GHADC.
“But in the last ten years, the NPP-led government ignored the agreement and hijacked the projects and avoided having meetings with the ANVC groups. The funds were misused and most of the projects were hijacked and others left incomplete,” he said.
According to Marak, after signing the agreement in 2014 by the ANVC groups, GHADC received a special package of Rs 100.71 crore in 2015-16 for all round development of Garo Hills.
“Out of Rs 100.71 crore, the major projects were reserved for the close aides of the chief minister who did not complete the projects even after eight years”, he said, adding the GHADC museum project which was awarded to the NPP finance secretary “practically disappeared”.
“There were also duplication of projects and 40 per cent of the centrally funded projects simply disappeared from the council treasury. The GHADC today faces fund crunch because of NPP. NPP’s intention is to destroy GHADC,” Marak asserted.
“More funds continued to flow to GHADC till date which were meant to be implemented by the Rural Local Bodies (RLB) and Urban Local Bodies (ULB) in GHADC but the NPP-led Executive Committee misappropriated most of these funds and the funds were used to expand NPP to Manipur, Arunachal and other states,” he alleged.
Marak pointed out that the NPP-led Executive Committee failed to submit the completion report and till date utilisation certificate could not be submitted to the Central government.
