Activist exposes ‘unaccounted’ central grant worth Rs 47 crore

SHILLONG, Jan 30: An amount of Rs 47 crore, claimed to be unaccounted for, out of the Rs 119 crore received as central grants-in-aid through National Health Mission for COVID-19 activities has been flagged by RTI activist Disparsing Rani on Monday.
Talking to reporters, Rani said that the Centre had released an amount of Rs 5.61 crore in Phase I and Rs 104.12 crores in Phase II as per the RTI received from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Recalling the reply of Health Minister James PK Sangma to a question raised by former MLA, Adelbert Nongrum, during the last Assembly session, the RTI activist said the Health minister had stated that Rs 76 crore was sanctioned by the central government.
“As per the reply of Sangma, Rs 43 crore was unaccounted. This is only proves that there is large scale corruption when it comes to COVID-19 expenditure,” he said.
According to the RTI activist, the Health minister had also stated that the state government had spent a sum of Rs 816 crore on COVID-19.
The minister could not be contacted for his comments on the aforementioned allegations at the time of filing of this report.