Cong accuses MDA of looting the state by misusing the Saubhagya scheme

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 3, 2019

SHILLONG: The opposition Congress has accused the National People’s Party (NPP)-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government of misusing the Saubhagya scheme, which seeks to provide electricity to all households, as its “model item” to loot the state. 

Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Dr Mukul Sangma told reporters on Tuesday that the implementation of the scheme in Meghalaya has resulted into a deep scam because of the criminal conspiracy by the people in the government. 

“This project has been taken as a model item for them to loot the state. There has been a deep conspiracy to ultimately engage in the scam because of the greed of the people who are in power,” Sangma said.  

He said the first controversy was the manipulation of the terms and conditions in the bidding documents to favour the pre-identified bidders while the second was to allow the bidder to be successful and exclude others by manipulating the total cost of the project. 

According to him, the award of contract was more than 50 percent of the total estimated project cost which was based on the detailed project report (DPR) prepared by Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL). 

Sangma said this was in view that many projects under the different programmes are still being implemented on the ground with the old rates. 

It may be mentioned here that the project, which started in 2017, is aimed at cent percent household electrification through construction of an 11 KV line with ACSR weasel conductor, installation of distribution transformers and others. 

A total of Rs 657 crore has been sanctioned for providing electricity connection to 1, 99,835 households in the eleven districts of the state. The project was split into package A which is for Khasi-Jaintia Hills region and package B for Garo Hills region. 

Stating that for the first time in the history of Meghalaya, the process of payment was also manipulated, Sangma said the MeECL chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) has sent a letter to sub-divisional officer to prepare the bill and submit directly to the chief engineer (distribution) and pass the bill without allowing it to go through the normarl process of scrutiny by different levels.

“When you look at the whole exercise that has been resorted to, it has proven beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a collective effort by all those greedy people in power to engage in criminal conspiracy (while implementing the scheme),” he said.   

“I have also inputs which indicate that the bill prepared is based on the manipulation in the tender agreement which provides payment of 90 percent of the work claimed to have been executed unlike for other schemes under implementation by MeECL, there is a different parameter…,” he added. 

The leader of opposition further pointed out that such exercise has resulted in a huge loss to the state which is having very limited resources, since the centrally sponsored scheme is required to be implemented with a matching share. 

Stating that the state is under threat due to this continuous loot, Sangma said the letter from MeECL CMD is just a tip of the ice berg to indicate what is happening as an offshoot of this criminal conspiracy, which the political bosses are hand in gloves, to loot the state. 

Referring to a petition filed before the Meghalaya High Court against the alleged manipulation in the tendering process and which was later withdrawn, the Congress leader questioned by saying “Has the petitioners withdrew happily or was somehow influence to withdraw.” 

He said though out of court settlement is always there but seriousness of the petition is that the petitioners have alleged that the whole bidding documents have been manipulated to favour particular contractors and yet this petition was withdrawn which has raised eyebrows. 

“Was it also not a fact that the then MeECL CMD PS Thangkhiew (presently, the chief secretary) was removed overnight and a junior most officer of the MeECL was put as new CMD…now who is doing this transfer and posting?” Sangma said. 

Asked whether the party would demand for an independent inquiry or file a complaint before the Lokayukta, the leader of opposition however said that the future course of action will be made known at the right time.