SHILLONG, Nov 3: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday clarified that Gabriel K Iangrai, Commandant of the elite Special Forces-10, was arrested in connection with the construction of some buildings allotted to the Police department and not for any alleged vehicle scam.
He reiterated that there is no such thing as vehicle scam and it is all about certain allotment issues which cannot be termed as scam.
The CM told reporters there were some allegations of misutilisation of funds in the construction of buildings in the Police department and an FIR was lodged. Stating that the government’s permission was also sought to pursue the case, he said the law would take its own course.
Iangrai was arrested based on an FIR lodged against him following an exposé of financial scandals in the construction of National Emergency Response System (NERS) Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) at the Shillong Sadar Police Station.
The Home Ministry had released Rs 95.78 lakh for the NERS PSAP project, taken up by the Police department as per a provision of Appendix 9 of the Meghalaya Financial Rules, 1981 that allows departments, other than PWD and Forest, to execute the work under the supervision of the respective departmental engineer.
The work was executed by Iangrai, the then Assistant Inspector-General of Police (Administration), who submitted “fake” utilisation certificates of Rs 95.78 lakh in addition to a completion certificate. There was no estimate or DPR. Only an estimate for the renovation of Sadar Traffic Branch for Rs 3 lakh was found in the file by the inquiry team.
There was an estimate for electrification of Rs 3,37,470 and the approximate cost of materials was only Rs 1,85,608. The approximate cost of construction materials was Rs 28,16,066, which took the total cost of the NERS building and renovation of Sadar Traffic Branch to Rs 33,01,674.
The investigators found that Iangrai not only submitted a falsified utilisation certificate to the government but after audit objections to the utilisation of Rs 95.78 lakh, he refunded Rs 26,85,389 to the Official AIG (A) account on September 19 this year.
The fact that a false utilisation certificate was submitted and after audit objections, the money, already drawn by Iangrai and which was in his personal custody, was returned, amounts to misappropriation of funds, the inquiry report had stated.
“The total expenditure for the construction of NERS PSAP building is estimated at Rs 33,01,674 when done on a self-help basis. Since the total sanction for NERS PSAP was Rs 68,37,440 (Rs 3 lakh for civil work, Rs 62 lakh for tubular structure and Rs 3,37,440 for electrification), the balance amount left should be Rs 35,35,793. Even after returning Rs 26,85,389, there is a balance amount of Rs 8,50,404 which is still in the personal custody of Iangrai and which again amounts to gross misappropriation of government funds,” the report had added.
