CM Ibobi assures a clean 'Secretariat'
Source: Hueiyen News Service / NNN

Imphal, July 17 2014: Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh on Thursday assured on the floor of the State Assembly that his Government would take up appropriate steps to deal with the problem of paying bribes or using contacts to get a job done in the State Secretariat.

Ibobi's assurance came after the Opposition in the House charged that officials from the lowest to the highest level in the Secretariat are taking money from the public without any inhibition for moving files from desk to desk.

Opposition MLAs Dr I Ibohalbi, L Ibomcha, Kh Joykishan and Th Shymakumar made the allegations while taking part in the Discussion and Voting on Demands for Grants-2014-15 in the House.

Six demands amounting to Rs 1078,92,56,000 were related to State Legislature, Council of Ministers, Secretariat, Finance, Art & Culture and Economics & Statistics.

Admitting that complaints have been received regarding slow process of files in the State Secretariat, the Chief Minister assured that his Government would take up steps to bring a new change in the Secretariat and make it a clean public office.

Responding to the various questions raised by Opposition MLAs during the discussion, the Chief Minister informed that taking into consideration of lack of quarters for Ministers and MLAs in the State and inevitable problem faced in allotting quarters to them, the Government is planning to construct residential quarters to accommodate Ministers, MLAs and officials together at Mantripukhri.

Due to lack of adequate quarters, sometimes Ministers have to stay in Guest House, he noted, and added that once the construction of the residential quarters is completed, MLAs of the respective constituencies including Ministers will be accommodated there.

The Chief Minister further said that to ease traffic congestion along the Governor complex, bus parking stationed just adjacent the Governor house will be shifted to ISBT parking and trucks parked at ISBT will be brought to Malom Oil Depot after its completion.

Assuring that the government will consider setting up of a film city in places like Chandel or Senapati where large acres of land are lying freely, the Chief Minister also asserted that the die in harness scheme in the State is being implementing in a transparency manner by adopting first come first serve basis.

Earlier, taking part in the discussion, MLA Joykishan alleged that all the development works taken up by the Ministers in constituencies are not revealed to the legislators concerned to belittle them.

He accused the Ministers of snatching power from the MLAs while taking up development works in their respective constituencies.

Joykishan further demanded the Government to come clean as to why official quarters for the MLAs have not been arranged till date.

He drew the attention of the state ruling Congress party to make it clear whether Die-in-Harness scheme is still effective in the state.

The MLA also demanded that a 'film city' should be set up in the state and produce movies elated to the historical events of Manipur.

MLA L Ibomcha said the forestry sector contributes huge revenue and alleged that the Government has been muddling up the affairs of the entire department and mislaying its revenue.

He also demanded that a film city be set up and films be made on historical events such as the Seven Years Devastation (Chahi-Taret Khuntakpa) and Puya-Meithaba (burning of ancient Manipuri scriptures) so that the future generation can understand the historical facts.

Dr I Ibohalbi alleged that the state Statistics Department has not been living up to the public's expectations.

There is no proper coordination between the Planning and Statistics departments, he alleged.

Ibohalbi demanded that the service of the Secretariat be streamlined to assert its importance and maintain a popular Government for the people.

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