RTI activist demands action
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 07 2016:
RTI activist Ayekpam Keshorjit today submitted a representation to Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh accusing the State Agriculture Department of concealing the sanction orders of about Rs 215,45,59000 provided by the Centre from 2011 to 2016 .
Stating that concealing these sanction orders amounts to misuse and misappropriation of public money provided by the Union Agriculture Ministry for the welfare of the people of the State, Keshorjit urged the Minister to take action against the public servants of the State Agriculture Department.
Copies of the representation were also sent to Chief Secretary of Manipur and Secretaries of Union Ministries of Agriculture and Cooperation.
Keshorjit said that the matter came to light after he sought information about these projects from the State Agriculture Department and Union Agriculture Ministry.
An RTI application was submitted by Keshorjit to the Central Public Information Officer/Director of Agriculture Government of India on July 11 last year to obtain information about the schemes, programmes, activities, works provided by the Union Agriculture Ministry for the farmers of the State from 2011 till today.
As per the information provided by the CPIO, Union Agriculture Ministry and North Eastern Council provided Rs 62,64,34000 and Rs 237, 53,68000 for different schemes to the State Government from 2011 to 2015 .
Some of the schemes which were found with sanction orders are Micro Management of Agriculture, NEC Schemes/programme diversification of Crop-double cropping in Manipur, seed village programme under Central Sector Scheme, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, Support and State extension programme for extension reforms, National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture National Food Security Measures for which the Ministry.
On the other hand, Keshorjit filed an application before SPIO/Director Agriculture Department, Government of Manipur on June 27 last year seeking a list of schemes, programmes, activities, works indicating the amounts of additional funds getting from Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and other financial institutions along with the copy of sanction orders for the year 2006 till 2014 and a copy of utilization certificate and audited statement of account of schemes/programme/ activities and works and years.
The SPIO of State Agriculture Department failed to provide any information for more than a month.
The RTI activist then filed his first appeal before the Special Secretary (Agriculture) for the Department's failure to provide any information sought under RTI.
On February 10, some information were provided to Keshorjit by the authority concerned which include some of the implemented schemes' list, sanction order and utilization certificate along with some other lists which are without sanction order and utilization certificate.
On March 10, during the a hearing before the Manipur Information Commission under appeal case number 40 of 2015 the applicant submitted before MIC that the information provided by SPIO has not been grouped/ classified category wise viz, State Scheme, CSS, NEC Scheme and it is quite confusing.
The applicant further submitted that the SPIO needs to clarify in this regard and also submitted that the applicant also wanted the representative of SPIO to clarify whether the list of schemes taken up by the Department as provided by the SPIO on February 10 is conclusive or not.
After hearing both the parties, the Commission directs the SPIO to make classification/grouping of the sanction order under State Scheme, CSS, NEC and make the same available to the appellant before the next hearing of the appeal case fixed on March 29.As per the direction of the Commission, the SPIO provided the State and Central Govt schemes and mentioned that no scheme of NEC is implemented from 2011 June till March last year.
The State Agriculture Department furnished sanction orders for Rs 62,45,43000 allocated to the line Department under RKVY.
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