Meghalaya | Congress accuse CM’s brother-in-law of indulging in extortion

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaDecember 15, 2020

The opposition Congress has accused the brother-in-law of Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma of indulging in extortion from coal laden trucks plying through National Highway-62.

“One Sanjay A Sangma, who is the own brother of the CM’s wife has been indulging in extortion in NH-62,” Congress spokesperson and Rangsakona legislator, Zenith Sangma told reporters on Tuesday.

He said the glaring involvement of the chief minister’s family and his relatives with regards to extortion and corruption has once again surfaced and exposed.

Zenith alleged that the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) has arbitrarily issued an order in the pretext of collecting monopoly tax from the coal trucks plying through the NH-62.

The order issued by the secretary to the executive committee of GHADC on October 16 had stated, “The EC is pleased to settled wageasi coal market with Sanjay A Sangma of Tura Hawakhana, PO Tura for Rs 3 lakh for the year 2020 to 2022 ie November 1, 2020 to March 31, 2022 on the following terms and conditions…”

“My question is under which provision or rule of the GHADC, this kind of order was issued whereas the GHADC is getting its share of royalty through the state government. So it is very illegal and it is heights of the greed that is being reflected from this action,” he said.

Referring to the signboard put up at the gate, the Congress leader said the signboard had mentioned ‘office of the GHADC – coal monopoly Wegeasi, North Garo Hills’ which means authority of the GHADC should also be present.

“But only the lessee is collecting the money. From the first day onwards, only Rs 500 per coal laden truck was collected but from yesterday onwards, it has been increased to Rs 1,000 per truck,” he said.

In view of this, Zenith said some of the responsible citizens of North Garo Hills district have made complaints before the deputy commissioner, who has endorsed it to the SP concerned to take necessary action.

“After the complaint was received, rather these people were collecting money from coal trucks illegally under police protection. This is the state of affairs in the state and it is very unfortunate,” he further alleged.

Expressing concern over the delay to release the salaries of GHADC employees for the past 30 months, Zenith asked have you ever found that for such a long period of time, the employees are not getting their salaries as he wonders how they will manage to survive.

“This only reflects the insensitivity and inefficiency of the state government,” he said.

He also slammed the state government for delay to release salaries of the SSA teachers and employees of the different public sector undertakings and said this is the kind of situation where this present leadership is running the government.

“It is very unfortunate to see this kind of mismanagement as far as the governance is concerned,” Zenith stated.