Anomalies in NEHU Tura Campus projects
Shillong, Jan 20: The Director of NEHU Tura Campus, Prof Sujata Gurudev on Monday clarified that she did not issue any work order in December 2023 as it can be done only by the competent authority in the Shillong headquarter.
“It was only a letter as per the routine process to inform Manipur Tribal Development Corporation (MTDC) about their selection after evaluation process of the tender by a constituted committee,” Prof Gurudev said while stating that the file was forwarded to Shillong for the procedural check and necessary action to be taken up as decision on such matters cannot be taken by the Tura Campus.
Prof Gurudev’s reaction came in the form of an official clarification after NEHUTA alleged that Vice Chancellor Prabha Shankar Shukla was in cahoots with the “illegally appointed” Prof Gurudev to hand over NEHU works to private agencies and corporations from other states.
She claimed that all official communiqué are sacrosanct to the Vice Chancellor’s Office. “All communication about any lapse in procedure will and can come from the Vice Chancellor’s Office or the Ministry which strictly enforces all procedures and personally inspects all their projects from the proposal stage to its final construction stage,” Prof Gurudev said.
According to her, what remains shocking is that a procedural matter has been converted into a shocking and frontal attack on the dignity of a woman in an office space.
“If words like ‘associate’ and ‘cahoots’ can be used on the Campus Director, one shudders to think how other members of the teaching community fare,” Prof Gurudev added.
Earlier, NEHUTA claimed it had unearthed gross financial irregularities by Vice Chancellor Prabha Shankar Shukla as the chairman of the Building Committee while allotting projects for the university’s Tura Campus by completely brushing aside all rules and norms of tendering and issuance of a work order.
According to the information available with NEHUTA, Prof Shukla and his associate, Prof Sujata Gurudev who is the Campus Director of Tura, apparently chose firms through nomination to initiate work for the NEHU Tura Campus during the 143rd Building Committee held on October 16 last year.
“This is an act of sheer wheeling-dealing with an agency at the back of which no one knows what the design is. How can a Manipur government agency execute a work (at any stage) at NEHU? Prof Shukla and Prof Gurudev are deliberately violating the laws of the Sixth Schedule to deprive the local community of contractors and handing over the works to agencies outside Meghalaya,” NEHUTA had claimed.
The anomalies relate to the preparation of the DPR by the Manipur Tribal Development Corporation Ltd. (MTDCL) which was selected by the Tura Campus as an outsourced agency to carry out the construction of two boys’ hostels, two girls’ hostels, and a 1,000-capacity auditorium on the Tura Campus at a cost of Rs 92.31 crore and the construction of the Food Testing Laboratory on NEHU Tura Campus to be executed by NEST-IN (TATA Steel Construction Solution Initiative) at a cost of Rs 1.84 crore.