Kohima, January 13 (MExN): The Naga People's Front (NPF) has supplemented the press release issued by the Nagaland State Village Development Board Secretary Association (NSVDBSA) with pointers in order to “to clear any confusion that might arise from the ambiguous statement of the association where it claimed that Grant-in-Aid was released and kept in the accounts of the respective Deputy Commissioners.”
The NPF, in a Communique from its Central Headquarters’ Press Bureau, reminded that “Deputy Commissioner of Peren District had confirmed the receipt of the Fund only on January 9 and not in the month of December 2018 as claimed by the Department officials.”
Further, “it has been confirmed from the outgoing Deputy Commissioner of Dimapur that he had received the Fund in batches and not in a single demand draft on January 10 which had complicated the process of disbursement to the respective VDBs under Dimapur District.”
Regarding Mon District, the NPF stated that “it is clear that the Fund had only been released to some of the blocks after January 5 and not as claimed by the Association.”
It reminded that the “apple of discord, in the very first place, was the delay in release of Grant-in-Aid and the subsequent claim of RD Department that it was released in the month of December 2018.”
The NPF as well as MLAs Vikheho Swu and Er. Picto Shohe in separate press releases also stated that the “gutsy clarification and rebuttal by the RD Department to the statement of the Leader of Opposition, TR Zeliang regarding the backlog years only corroborates our apprehension of the hand of RD Officials along with the Minister in-Charge, in changing the High Level Committee’s Allocation.”
Since the opposition’s statements were based on records of the High Level Committee, they claimed, “How can the Nodal Department that is responsible for feeding the data to the HLC contradict the years in question? This contradictory statement of the Department gives rise to a pertinent question of whether the Department had given false data to the High Level committee.”
The two legislators appealed to the department concerned to “release the Grant-in-Aid at the earliest to all the districts” as delaying of the release would “tantamount to snatching away the shares of rural section of the State.”
.JPG)
