ES Reporter

ITANAGAR, Oct 1: The Trans-Arunachal Highway Compensation Deprived Forum on Monday threatened to launch series of protests in the form of "Itanagar Chalo", Rallies and dharna outside civil secretariat if the government fails to address their long pending charter of demands within 29th of this month.
The forum has been demanding, lodging of an FIR against unknown people involved in the Trans Arunachal highway scam from Potin to Ziro or the case be handed over to CBI, construction of highway within this financial year, arrest of absconding Junior Engineer for preparing fake bills for the TAH between  Joram -Koloriang road and early conduct of verification process of Highway from Joram Top to Bopi under Lower subansiri.
In a press conference, Forum's spokesperson Bengia Tolum said that the state government failed to pursue the case vigorously and no serious action has been initiated to give the case a logical conclusion.
“And the SIC has virtually buried the TAH land compensation scam case, as even after elapse of months it has failed to complete the investigation,” he alleged.
Tolum said the manner in which the SIC is dealing the case clearly indicates that the government is trying to protect some people involved in the scam who are enjoying political support.
“Most surprising is that the SIC is yet to arrest the Junior Engineer, K Bath,  one of the key accused in the compensation scam in Joram-Koloriang TAH project who has been on the run since the scam surfaced,” he added.
Referring to the recent statement made by Chief Minister, that no one involved In the scam would be spared, Tolum while terming the statement as  bold announcement hoped that the other “big names” involved in the scam would be dug out too and award exemplary punishment to them.
He also said that apart from probing into the money laundering, investigations would also focus on the nexus between the bureaucrats and politicians in this scam.
Informing that it recently with the support of a fact-finding committee (FFC) successfully carried out the re-verification of Potin to Joram Top, Tolum said the team detected lots of discrepancies and anomalies in the disbursement of compensation to beneficiaries including tampering of land records.

He cited the name of two landowners of Yazali circle, who weren’t entitled to receive the payment, but were paid crores of rupees in compensation for non-existent infrastructure.

As the FFC already submitted its report to the government, Tolum said that now FFC must start the re-evaluation process of a stretch of Highway from Joram Top to Bopi too so that construction could be started within this year.
Tolum further also asked the state government to furnish “white paper “on the Rupees 11 crore  sanctioned by MoRTH for repair and maintenance of Potin to Bopi. He claimed except for few repairs that too with soil, no visible work was carried out as the condition remained in a dilapidated condition as earlier.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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