No question of procuring a chopper for Meghalaya VIPs: CM
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday said the question of procuring a chopper is absolutely not at all feasible keeping in mind the financial constraints of the state of Meghalaya.
His statement came as a strong reaction to a news report alleging that the state government is all set to procure chopper for VIP movement.
In a video statement, Sangma said that the fact is that Meghalaya has not cme out with any kind of tender or show any intention to procure a chopper because it is very expensive.
According to him, the government has only called for a tender to lease the chopper services for VIP movement.
“We will be only giving out a tender for leasing. (It is a) short term lease on service basis and we pay on an hourly basis to the concerned company and that is the most efficient way in which we can serve the purpose and at the same time not incurred too much of a heavy financial burden,” Sangma said.
He added, “This is being done also as most of the time the chopper that is there that is meant for the tourists and the normal commuters that are meant for Shillong, Tura and Guwahati, they normally get disturbed when there is some VIP movements and hence as and when we require the chopper, at least by following a procedure, we will be leasing it out and using the chopper as and when we require it. The chopper belonged to the service providers, pilots are theirs and fuels are theirs, we only pay on an hourly basis.”
To a question, the chief minister said, “Absolutely, the procedures is very clear that we are going to be leasing out the chopper services and the payments will be made on an hourly basis so there is no question of procuring a chopper.”
“It is absolutely not feasible for us to procure a chopper as number one it is very expensive and two, maintaining it is very difficult and three, we need pilots to be recruited by the government so on and so forth so there is completely no need for it as VIPs movements are limited but at the same time I must say that choppers are sometimes necessary as it saves a lot of time and sometimes urgent movements need to be done by senior leaders and for all those purposes we do require the chopper but the usage is quite minimum,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the chief minister has said that the government may file a defamation case against the concerned media organization for coming out with such a news report.
According to him, the DIPR and administration will decde on the matter.
“It is not good or correct for any media house to come out with news without doing their homework and just to sensationalize the news and get the attention, they come out with news like that without facts. So yes if necessary, a defamation case may be filed also but that will be explored by the officials and we will see how it goes but I do urge the media houses that we need to act responsibly, we need to ensure factual news come out and don’t try to sensationalise news just to get attention as I said in the long run people will lose trust in your newspaper. So the concerned media house needs to becareful as it is about their brand and about the trust that people have in them which slowly and steady people are losing,” he added.
He said last time also, the same media organization had mentioned that there is a Rs 1300 crore of scam in a tourism department and later on when they found out that it is just a Rs 13 crore scheme and there was no scam in it also.
“Out of Rs 13 crore scheme, a component of about Rs 70 lakh was not fully complete and accordingly, we have asked the contractor and the department to follow up. So sensationalising news like this they may get the attention for that day but as they keep doing this I am sure people will lose trust in such media house who keep coming up with such false information and news. I would urge them not to come up with this kind of a news just to defame the government in any line, it is not a very good thing,” he added further.
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