Dimapur, June 28 (MExN): Pangti Village Council today refuted the contention of Y Ekyimo Kikon, stated as self-styled adhoc chairman, over their ongoing disparage in regard to implementation of the NREGS scheme in the Pangti areas. The council said Kikon’s claims of being selected as chairman of NREGS beneficiaries by 567 beneficiaries on May 31 “is nothing but his own creation” and “totally misleading and unfounded.”
According to the council’s rejoinder received here, leaders of the local village authorities and the village’s students’ union and VDB secretary met on June 21 in a joint meeting. In the joint meeting, village council members and GBs who were present in the May 31 meeting had testified before the joint meeting that no one was selected as adhoc chairman of NREGS beneficiaries. So Kikon’s claim to being the adhoc chairman of NREGS beneficiaries, “is unbecoming of a public leader who is holding responsible status in the party rank and file”, the council stated.
The council explained that on the polling day of the last parliamentary elections, Y. Ekyimo Kikon had made public announcement near a polling station, number-5 of Pangti village that after the parliamentary polls, ‘he would go to Delhi and bring NREGS fund and pay Rs. 10,000 each to all job card holders by himself at once’.
Also on May 31, Kikon requested the pastor to make an announcement in the church during Sunday’s devotional service to converge at the village community hall. He is said to have assured “job cards” to be distributed “through RTI”. “Eagerly hoping to receive Rs. 10,000 from him as committed earlier, the poor and ignorant job card holders converged at the community hall but the poor villagers got only photocopy of their job card. Whether Shri. Y. Ekyimo Kikon has authority to handle job card or not is left to him alone,” the village council stated.
Pangti Village Council explained to him that NREGS funds are not kept in the custody of any individual but transacted through banks only as prescribed by the NREG ‘Act/department’. As for the Pangti Village, the entire funds released by the department are transacted through the saving bank account No. 3678 of Bank of Baroda Wokha. “This account is operated with joint signature of the VDB secretary and the BDO Sanis,” the council explained. The amount withdrawn from the bank has been judiciously utilized for the purpose for which the fund was released, the council assured.
The council further said that Kikon’s seeking clarification as to ‘whether the press note was issued on obtaining the consent of the general public of the Pangti village’ exhibits his sheer ignorance of the village’s administration. “The village council is to clarify and remind him that the village council is legally constituted body and it is peoples’ representative council. The VCMs are elected by its people with a mandate to represent them in the house, therefore, any decisions taken by the village council is construed as the decision of the people/general public,” it added.
