State losing readily available resources, says party spokesperson
Morung Express News
Kohima | September 24
The Naga People’s Front (NPF) today questioned the People's Democratic Alliance on the controversy over the ownership and court case issue of the Kolkata Nagaland House at Shakespeare Sarani.
Addressing a press conference here in the NPF Headquarters on September 24, the Party Spokesperson Achumbemo Kikon maintained that the best opportunity came in 2017 when the lease of the Civil Engineers Enterprises Pvt Ltd. (CEEPL) got expired.
“TR Zeliang had instructed the Home Commissioner and Chief Secretary not to renew their (CEEPL) lease unless the rate is negotiated as per the market rate. In the process, election was announced. After that we were voted out of power,” he noted.
During the intervening period, the CEEPL firm went to the court insisting that the Nagaland government must accept the existing rent that means 5 lakh per month, Kikon claimed, adding the firm later went to Kolkata High court and got a stay order on May 14, 2018.
“By that time the PDA government was already in, so the government of the day should have immediately challenged the interim order. They should have disagreed,” he stated.
“The government should have challenged it in the Supreme Court.”
The issue had stirred a heated debate between Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and Opposition Leader T R Zeliang in the recently held Assembly session, after it was first raised by the latter questioning the ruling PDA for not challenging the Kolkata High Court’s order on May 14.
According to the NPF Spokesperson, the State is receiving 60 lakh annually from the Kolkata Nagaland House whereas according to the market rate of the city, the rates are much higher.
The Nagaland House being a situated at a highly ‘commercially viable’ area where the rent is charge in terms of sq. ft, Kikon claimed out that more than “a thousand rupees is charged per sq. ft in the area, some even ranging from Rs 10,000 to 20,000 per sq. ft.”
“The total area of the house is around a lakh sq. ft, so if we are to calculate from the present market rate, we are losing about 23 crore in a year according to our assessment,” stated Kikon viewing that the rent is a viable source of revenue for the government.
It is a good revenue and huge amount for a state like Nagaland if “channelized properly,” he noted, instead of going to the capital with a begging bowl.
“We have readily available resources here which we are unable to manage properly. If this money is encashed in the exchequer of Nagaland we would have done a lot of development works out of it,” the Spokesperson further maintained.
Meanwhile, the NPF Central Youth Wing, in a press statement accused the Chief Minister of trying to conceal “his Government’s dereliction of duty by coming up with such an unsavoury response on the floor of the Assembly.
It further asked the Chief Minister Rio to come up “with clearcut answers ‘as to what answers were tendered by the AG, Balgopal and why the Interim Order of the Kolkata High Court of 14th May, 2018 was not challenged by the PDA Government.”
