NEC secretary suspended

SHILLONG, July 21: The North Eastern Council (NEC) secretary, Takap Ringu, the seniormost IAS officer from the region, has been placed under suspension for alleged financial irregularities, highly placed official sources here disclosed on Wednesday. The sources, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said Ringu had been under investigation by the Union home ministry for quite some time for alleged involvement in financial irregularities in the now scrapped "Intensive cultivation/plantation scheme" launched in the NE region during the Ninth Plan with an outlay of Rs 7 crore. Outright grants were to be made to individual beneficiaries, cooperatives and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to promote horticultural activities specially coffee, rubber, tea and 'mankum' plantations in the region under the scheme. About Rs 1.4 crore was sanctioned for the first year of the Ninth Plan. Funds totalling around Rs 70 lakh were released when 'serious anomalies' were noticed in the implementation of the scheme. Unlike all other schemes under the NEC, the grants were disbursed directly by the NEC instead of routing it through the respective state governments in the region. It is alleged that a major chunk of the grants were made to beneficiaries in Arunachal Pradesh, the home state of Ringu. One beneficiary in Nagaland was sanctioned Rs 50 lakh, out of which Rs 25 lakh have already been released. Two other beneficiaries in Golaghat and Morigaon districts of Assam have received grants of Rs 7 lakh and Rs 2 lakh respectively. A departmental probe was instituted early last year and two officers in NEC, Jatin Dutta and V K Lyngdoh, were placed under suspension sometime in June 1998. The scheme was also kept in abeyance. When contacted, Ringu confirmed his suspension but said "it is 100 per cent injustice against me. I will challenge the order in the court of law". Incidentally, Ringu had sought voluntary retirement from service about three months back but his application was rejected.