Tuki refutes allegation of fund embezzlement

From our correspondent

Itagar, July 9: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister bam Tuki today dismissed allegations of Opposition BJP on embezzlement of public fund amounting to more than 900 crore against centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) saying that all the schemes are implementing judiciously. Responding to a question raised by Congress member Lombo Tayeng during question hour in the assembly regarding complaint lodged by BJP MLAs against the state government of misappropriation of central funds, Tuki informed that the government has been maintaining transparency in fincial mismagement.

“There is no specific complaint against any particular scheme. Almost all the central schemes are in various stages of implementation with full transparency by appointing third party monitoring agencies including BARD and NeDFI against these schemes,” the chief minister disclosed and added that funds were released by the Centre after inspection of the schemes by central agencies.

He said there were many allegations from various organizations and the state government not only had clarified each and every query but also referred the status of implementation to state agencies.

In reply to a supplementary, Tuki informed the house that since 2011-12 to 2015-16 the Centre had sanctioned 56 schemes under Non Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) with sanctioned amount of 762.456 crore out of which Rs 346.966 crore had been released so far.

When Tayeng asked whether the government got a clean chit from the appropriate authority, the chief minister said, “It is up to the authority to decide on the merits and demerits of the allegations.”

“There is a system gap between policy execution and fund release,” he pointed out.

Referring to the alleged overdraft beyond the prescribed limit with RBI, Tuki said that the government had never violated the fincial rules but this year because of delay in fund release by Niti Aayog.

While responding to a supplementary from senior BJP member Japu Deru, the chief minister informed that payments were made against all the completed schemes and the fund against ongoing schemes was kept in civil deposit for payment after satisfactory completion of the schemes.