Imphal, February 01: Although a high powered committee headed by the Chief Secretary as the Chairman has taken up action against the officials concerned under the provisions of the Manipur Public Servant Personnel Liabilities Act , enacted to fix responsibilities right from Ministers to the employees the Government in connection with irregularities in appointment, financial mismanagement, issue of work and supply order, etc, the Chief Minister has not been able to taken up action against any of the Ministers involved in such cases.

After The Sangai Express flashed a report of its findings in connection with alleged financial mismanagement of over Rs 22 crores from the plan amount in the Power Department, the high powered committee headed by the Chief Secretary as Chairman suspended the Chief Engineer concerned after taking up a case.

However, there is complete silence on the matter related to possible involvement of the Minister concerned in the case.

Nonetheless, further probe into the case has revealed that the order for withdrawal of the fund in question allocated to all the divisions of the Department in December last year but diverted for some other purposes had been issued with the permission of the Minister concerned on December 31, 2007 .

On December 24, 2007, the Under Secretary of Power had reportedly issued an order for 'Allotment of funds for cheques drawal authority in respect of Power Department, Manipur under Plan for clearance of liabilities for the year, 2007-08' and side stepping the Principal Secretary (Power), gave instruction to the bank and the treasury to allow withdrawal of the fund.

In connection with the case of financial misappropriation of the fund sanctioned for putting up new wiring and construction of sub-stations by the Power Department, the High Powered Committee led by Chief Secretary as Chairman discussed the matter and subsequently brought the matter to the knowledge of the Chief Minister.

However, the Chief Minister is yet to take up any action against the Minister concerned till date.

The fund allocation to every divisions of the Power Department as ordered by the Under Secretary (Power) are IED-I Rs 110.48 lakhs as normal plan, IED-II Rs 65.98 lakhs as normal plan, IED-III Rs 39.71 lakhs as normal plan, IMD Rs 68.17 lakhs as normal plan, SCD-I Rs 96.10 lakhs inclusive of normal plan and SPA, SCD-IIRs 43.96 lakhs inclusive of normal plan and SPA, TCD-IRs 102.02 lakhs inclusive of normal plan and SPA, TCD-IIRs 76.56 lakhs inclusive of normal plan and SPA.

The amount of the fund allocation to divisions of the Department in all the districts and their sub-divisions are Bishnupur DivisionRs 89.68 lakhs as normal plan, ChurachandpurRs 87.02 lakhs as normal plan, RED-I (Kakching)Rs 162.36 lakhs as normal plan, ChandelRs 99.73 lakhs as normal plan, Thoubal Rs 48 lakhs as normal plan, Ukhrul Rs 24 lakhs as normal plan, Kangpokpi Rs 43.45 lakhs as normal plan, TamenglongRs 323.21 lakhs as normal plan, Jiribam-Rs 12 lakhs as normal plan and Senapati-Rs 61.36 lakhs as normal plan.

Moreover, the amount of other plan allocations are Store-Rs 156.93 lakhs, Project Store-Rs Rs 35.40 lakhs, Generation-Rs 6 lakhs, WST-Rs 50.90 lakhs, CD-I-Rs 39.30 lakhs, CD-IIRs 241.10 lakhs, CD-III-Rs 142.37 lakhs and CD(H-I)-Rs 15 lakhs.

To facilitate further investigation in to the matter, it is learnt that the case has been handed over to the Vigilance and the latter in turn has already started collecting the relevant documents.

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