Itanagar: The Arunachal Pradesh government today said the allegations levelled by BJP legislators and Leader of Opposition Tamiya Taga on misuse and misappropriation of Centrally sponsored funds by the state government as “unsubstantiated allegations.”
“The Ministry of DONER sends monitoring teams to inspect projects under NLCPR and NEC from time to time and on their satisfaction funds are released. The state government has not only always welcomed such inspections but also provides logistic support to such visiting officials.
“It is reiterated that the government will welcome such inspections in future as well and encourages transparency in the larger interest of development in the state,” Government Spokesman Bamang Felix said in a statement on Tuesday.
“However, the unsubstantiated allegations that the entire funds under NLCPR and NEC were embezzled, by the BJP legislators without giving any project specific instances to support their claim reveals the ill intention to deprive the state of much needed development fund and will also demoralise the hard working bureaucrats and technocrats,” Felix said.
“The state government has been closely monitoring all the development activities under state and centrally sponsored schemes through its already in place monitoring and vigilance mechanism.
However, the government will not hesitate to institute SIC/SIT enquiry on any specific projects where allegations are found to be true and if anybody or any agency found guilty will be taken to task. But the government shall not entertain any roving or fishing nature of allegations,” he said.
The government’s reaction came after the Centre on Monday ordered a probe into the allegations of corruption and siphoning off development-related fund by the Arunachal Pradesh government. DoNER Minister Jitendra Singh talking to reporters at New Delhi informed that the decision was taken after 11 BJP MLAs from Arunachal alleged misuse of development fund and accordingly he had directed the ministry’s secretary to collect all the relevant information related to the projects and institute an inquiry into the status and progress of those projects sanctioned during 2011-12 to 2014-15.
It may be noted that an inquiry had been ordered by the centre to look into the allegations of corruption and siphoning off of development related funds by the Arunachal Pradesh Government (PTI)