GUWAHATI: The Director of Information and Public Relations (IPR) Department of Assam, Ranjit Gogoi was arrested by Police on Tuesday in connection with a major scandal involving over Rs 31 crore that allegedly took place towards the end of the previous Congress regime headed by Tarun Gogoi.
The investigation to the scandal is being carried out by Assam Chief Minister’s Special Vigilance Cell (CM’s SVC). The case was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by senior BJP legislator Atul Bora, who had alleged that the IPR department had released a huge sum of money to some private firms to run a multi-media publicity campaign called “Vision Assam Mission Assam” to highlight the “success stories” of the previous Congress government just ahead of the 2016 state assembly elections.
Director Gogoi has been accused, among other things, of executing the project “without express or implied approval” of the government, as also of arbitrarily modifying and manipulating the work schedules, with the enquiry report holding him “squarely responsible” for the irregularities, manipulations and “criminal waste” of public money. The enquiry report also put on record that Gogoi had in his statement maintained that he carried out verbal instructions of the then Commissioner & Secretary of the IPR department.
The enquiry report submitted by Jyotirmoy Chakravarty, Additional DGP (CM’s SVC) mentioned that while the decision to launch a multi-media campaign called `Vision Assam Mission (VAMA)’ was taken at the “highest level” of the government in the early part of 2015, the project was executed through the Directorate of IPR.
The enquiry report also mentioned that there was “sheer waste of public money without achieving the desired objective.”
As there was no budget allocation for the project, it took several months to arrange funds through supplementary demand and re-appropriation, “subsequently immense pressure (was) built up to rush through the project before announcement of the Assembly elections,” the enquiry report said. The project was approved by the then chief minister (Tarun Gogoi) on March 25, 2015, the report said.
The enquiry report has clearly mentioned about funds released for the publicity campaign to highlight the achievements of the then Congress government was “wasted in a mindless manner.” Most of the printed material had remained undistributed, but the government paid full amount for publicity with the publicity materials actually being made available, the report had said.
Regarding the unusual pace in which funds were released by fulfilling all official formalities for the selected firms on February 29, 2016, the enquiry report had said, “All this indicates the existence of very strong influences and vested interests in releasing the payment to the firms.”
IPR director Ranjit Gogoi has been also separately accused of allocating work worth over Rs 49.63 lakh to Nandita Creation, a firm owned by his wife Nandita Buragohain, during 2009-2010 and 2010-11. The enquiry report pointed out that in doing so he had clearly violated Rule 19(3) of the Assam Civil Services (Conduct) Rules 1965, and was thus liable for disciplinary action.
More arrests are likely to take place in connection with the scam in the days to come. The enquiry report had given a list of five officers including a senior IAS officer who were directly associated with the project, as also names of four private firms which were allocated the work.
“All decisions are taken at senior level and officials at lower level had little role to play, except in assisting their senior. However, during investigation, custodial interrogation, and searches and seizures made, newer facts may come out and involvement of other persons at senior and junior level may be found,” the enquiry report had said.
Meanwhile, LS Changsan, a senior IAS officer of the principal secretary rank, who was commissioner and secretary of the IPR department for over the past two years and was also mentioned in the report, was last removed from the department last week.
The ADGP, Jyotirmoy Chakravarty who had conducted the enquiry has recently gone on central deputation as the ADG of SSB. He, however, clarified that his deputation to the Central government had nothing to do with the enquiry into the IPR scam.