Dispur Wakes Up To End The Prevalent ‘Syndicate Raj’

GUWAHATI: Dispur finally seems to have woken up to bring a possible end to the prevalent “Syndicate Raj”, the very name that causes terror among common people in the State.

A high-level meeting held among the top officials of the Assam Police, Transport, Forest and Finance (taxation) on Wednesday decided to adopt a coordinated effort and launch a crack down on those running syndicates in coal, fertilizer, sand and other fields.

Additional Chief Secretary (Home and Political) Kumar Sanjay Krishna who was also in-charge Chief Secretary, chaired the high-level meeting and drew the attention of the top officials to the recent reports about alleged transportation of articles like coal, fertilizer, sand etc. He said there is an urgent need to take prompt and effective coordinated effort by the Police, Transport, Forest and Finance (taxation) departments to stop such illegal practice.

Principal Secretary of Finance department Samir Kumar Sinha who was present in the meeting advocated for a common format of reporting about syndicate activities by the districts. He said such reporting by the district should be regularly monitored at the State level by an apex monitoring committee.

After having a threadbare discussion on the issue, the meeting resolved to initiate a slew of initiates to do away with the syndicate raj in the State. The meeting decided to constitute flying squads comprising officials from the police department, transport, forest and finance (taxation) to conduct random checking of vehicles that allegedly carry coal, fertilizer, sand and other materials by violating laws. Such flying squads will be constituted especially in Tinsukia, Sivasagar and Charaideo district which have the sources of articles like coal and in Golaghat, Kokrajhar, Dhubri and Karimganj district which share inter-district or inter-state border. The deputy commissioners will daily submit the reports of the flying squads to the Home & Political department in Dispur.

It was also decided that the Chief Secretary will take up the issues with his counterparts in the neighbouring States to prevent illegal transportation of articles through inter-state border.

Besides preparing a common format of daily reporting about syndicate activities by the Deputy Commissioners, the meeting decided that the Finance (taxation), Forest, Police and Transport departments will nominate senior officers to the Political (A) department to set up the State Level Monitoring Committee. The committee will review the reports received from the DCs once in every fortnight.

It was also decided in the meeting that the Finance (taxation), Transport and Forest departments would submit a report on actions taken for violation in carrying of coal, fertilizer, and sand, besides other minerals in the past three months.

Syndicate raj, a deep-rooted extortion racket literally running various flourishing business has resulted in several socio-economic ills including skyrocketing prices of all essential commodities in Assam. The common people are always at the receiving end of various syndicates allegedly backed by political masters. So, the big question remains as to whether the decisions of the Wednesday’s high-level meeting will be backed by political masters? Will Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal be bold enough to root out syndicates by showing tremendous political will? It is said that good politics does not always make good economics. But good politics must make good economics for better and brighter days in Assam.

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