By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The Khasi Heritage Conservation Forum (KHCF) has again submitted its final expenditure of the 2013 Monolith Festival to the House Committee.
In the report to the Committee that had probed the illegal transfer of Rs 2 crore to personal accounts, member secretary of KHCF, Alan West Kharkongor, wrote, “We are aware that even the sponsorship for Monolith 2013 was not routed through official procedure.”
However, he said the expenditure of Rs 95,22,000 is equal to the donation and he wanted to avoid confusion. The report was submitted to Neil Antonio War, chairman of the forum much before the holding of the second edition of the Monolith Festival 2016.
The KHCF report was pinned together with the report of the House Committee that was tabled during the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council’s special session held recently.
The list of sponsors includes Lafarge Umiam Private Limited (Rs 10 lakh), Directorate of Arts and Culture, Meghalaya (Rs 5 lakh), Directorate of Tourism, Meghalaya (Rs 3 lakh), North Eastern Council (Rs 20 lakh) and KHADC (Rs 57,22,000).
KHCF had spent a large sum to get media glare on the festival at Mawphlang.
National media was paid Rs 1 lakh through the Advance Publicity Committee on October 4, 2013 while CNN IBN was paid Rs 6,50,000 on October 23, 2013.Again in the list of expenditure, it showed that CNN IBN was paid Rs 50,000 on the same day.
DDK Shillong was paid Rs 13,500 and CNN IBN team was paid Rs 20,000 which amounts to Rs 33, 500 on September 15, 2014.
National media was again given a full payment of Rs 1, 70,000 through the publicity committee on September 1, 2014.
Again, it revealed that on September 15, 2014 an amount of Rs 2,86,375 was paid to CNN IBN and national print media.
On February 4, 2016, Rs 36, 000 was paid for hiring of vehicles for media CNN IBN for four days at the rate of Rs 4500 per day.
Eclectic Magazine was paid Rs 15,000 on February 4, 2016. Local and regional publicity was paid Rs 8,45,050. On February 4, 2016, Red FM was paid Rs 39,680.
The payment to cultural troupe was Rs 15 lakh. Other remuneration were for hotels and other expenditure, showing a total of Rs 95,22,000.
It is learnt that the KHCF submitted the report to the executive committee.
The House Committee then called the file for probing the alleged misappropriation of funds.