Morung Express News
Dimapur | August 24
Without specifying the location of works carried out, the State Finance Department, Budget & Monitoring Cell on March 3, 2017 released Rs 327.83 lakh (Rupees Three Crore Twenty Seven Lakh Eighty Three Thousand) for “payment of 213 petty pending bills – Improvement of road (Supply of stone metals).”
The drawing limit was authorised based on the proposal received from the Commissioner and Secretary, Work & Housing PWD (R&B) Department and the drawal authority was issued in favour of EE (R&B) Dimapur Division.
Even as the drawal authority was issued in favour of EE (R&B) Dimapur Division, one cannot presume that all the improvement of roads in 213 locations were carried out in Dimapur district. This is because there exists a history of issuing drawal authorities in favour of other Divisions when the work actually fell in the jurisdiction of another Division.
This can be ascertained in a clarification issued by the Chief Engineer PWD (R&B) published on August 17, 2017 in the local dailies stating that drawal authority for construction of a bridge on Mon-Tizit Road was issued in favour of EE, PWD (R&B) South Division, Kohima and later transferred to EE, PWD (R&B) Mon Division.
It was learnt that an employee under EE (R&B) Dimapur Division was transferred reportedly for refusing to draw the amount of Rs 327.83 lakh when the Department insisted on 50% deduction of the bill. However, with the intervention of some politicians, the employee was transferred back to Dimapur, yet the deduction took place. There would not arise any case of unreasonable deductions from the Department upto 50% if the pending bills were genuine since the bills are supposed to be released to the contractor/s and in the event of any such huge deduction, the amount would fall short for payment.
The public is yet to know as to which are the 213 locations where improvement of roads were carried out and how much was the total amount against each work, since the amount of Rs 3.27 crore was only “petty pending bills.”
