BJP national team to arrive in Imphal tomorrow to expose SPF corruption
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network

Imphal, January 27, 2011: A three-member national BJP team is scheduled to arrive in Manipur on Friday on a fact-finding mission to expose alleged graft cases against chief minister, Okram Ibobi Singh and his Secular Progressive Front (SPF) government on the multi-crore centrally sponsored Loktak Lake project.

The "mission expose" team of BJP will touch down at Tulihal airport in Imphal at about 9 am on an Indigo flight on its two-day visit to the State from where they will head straight to Loktak Lake in Bishenpur district to minutely inspect the gap between works executed and the amount already sanctioned under the Centrally sponsored project to clean up Loktak Lake.

The Loktak Lake is a beautiful and one of the most important fresh water lakes in the North East.

It is a historic lake providing livelihood to the people of Manipur with the production of various fishes and aquatic products.

It has the only floating Keibul Lamjao wildlife sanctuaries in the world, home to the endangered Sangai (brow antlered dear).

The three-member BJP team will include MP Bijoya Chakraborty, Tapir Gao, general secretary BJP and its national secretary Kirit Somalya, informed Sh Shantikumar, BJP Manipur unit president.

Talking to Newmai News Network, Shantikumar said that its national team is visiting the State not only to find facts regarding graft "chargesheet" against the chief minister but also to facilitate in coming out with winning majority seats in the Lok Sabha by BJP under the party's Mission 2014. During the inspection tour at Loktak Lake, the visiting BJP team will meet officials of Loktak Development Authority (LDA) and inquire into the modus operandi leading to the award of the tender for the cleaning up and removal of phumdis (thick biomass) from the Lake to a nascent and dubious Delhi based company called K Pro Infra Works Private Limited, said Shantikumar.

The BJP State president produced a report to substantiate its claimed that while the project began in 2008-09, the company that was established in the year 2009 was awarded the tender for the multi crore Loktak Lake project.

The report quoted the chief minister as saying in a public function on January 6, 2010, that a sum of 25 crore had already been spent during 2008-09 for conservation and management of Loktak lake and associated wetlands.

It went on to quote the project director of LDA saying, 16.5 crore was given to K Pro Infra Works Private Limited as advance for phumdis management.

With work for the clearance of phumdi awarded in 2009, a payment of Rs.16.5 crore was promptly sanctioned, said the report, with the puzzling question remaining as to how a contract was awarded in the financial year 2008-09 to a company that was founded in June 2009."This is a serious case of corruption," said the report.

The initial projection of the project cost of Rs.224 crore has now run into Rs.300 crore due to project run-over, delay and cost overshoot.

The report further quoted reliable sources as revealing that K Pro Infra Works Private Limited is owned by a top Congress politician's son.

Laying out the chargesheet against the chief minister on irregularity and misappropriation of the project fund to NNN, the State BJP president has revealed that K Pro Infra Works Private Limited is not an appropriate company for such a huge project and is a dubious one at that.

An inquire as to why K Pro Infra Works Private Limited has used the machinery of LDA rather than using its own is one of the objectives of the visit too, said Shantikumar.

After the Central team had returned from inspecting Loktak lake project, they will have an interactive session with the State BJP leaders at its office.

The team is also scheduled to interact with civil society leaders and intellectuals of the State.

Shantikumar has informed that before February 20, State BJP is set to launch a series of rallies and agitations from the unit and the block levels right up to the district and the State levels against corruption and price rise.

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