SHILLONG: The Four member Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly which visited Umsning on Tuesday to physically examine the state of fish ponds, expressed its disappointment over the manner in which ponds were constructed.
Member of the Committee, HM Shangpliang later said that the ponds were constructed by the MeECL at and expenditure of Rs 2 crore, were not carried out as per specifications. There were leakages in the ponds, he said.
Shangpliang said that another disappointment for the committee was the hatchery and it was in bad shape, adding the work quality was very poor.
The Committee was however satisfied with the other scope of work including the canal, rearing pond and the dam. The Committee have asked the MeECL to repair the hatchery and pond at the earlier and hand it over to the Fishery department at the earliest.
It is learnt that the MeECL and the Fishery department will meet on Wednesday prior to the review to be taken by the Power Minister, James Sangma, adding the committee has suggested Fishery department officials to meet MeECL and sort out the issues and provide technical advice as per the requirement. In addition, the MeECL official will place before the Minister issue of pond and hatchery before the Minister for sanctioning of additional funds for the project
The Committee later visited State Fishery Research and Training Institute and Mawpun and found that the institute is functioning well and they are also organizing weekly training for the fish farmers. It may be mentioned that expenditure of Rs 2 crore was incurred in a project executed by MeECL to augment fisheries pond and hatcheries under a scheme called the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).
The MeECL is yet to hand over the project to the Fisheries Department asserting that the work executed by them was not up to the standard as desired by the Fisheries Department and the scheme aimed at augmenting production from the existing 30 lakh fingerlings per annum to 50 lakhs.
