Additional Chief Secretary Rakesh Sharma, who is considered an adept in settling things down amicably has incurred the wrath of Congress MlA lalit Farswan who spewed fire on him on Monday evening regarding stalled projects announced by Vijay Bahuguna as the Chief Minister of the State in January 2014.
A day after the MlA going vituperative against the ACS, alleging that the latter is maliciously sitting on the development projects, the finance department, which had been dillydallying on the project citing dearth of budget, is supposed to have cleared the files on the last day of financial year of 204-15 i.e. March 31, 2015.
The MlA was found chasing the file till late Tuesday evening. Befuddled with his search proving abortive, he warned to take the matter to the people’s court to expose the constraints he is being beset with to stop him from meeting the aspirations of his constituency.
This correspondent found through investigation that In January 2014 Vijay Bahuguna as the CM had rolled out a dozen of developmental announcements, including two Bailey bridges, which had been washed out during disaster June 2013, in Pindari. He dished out such assurances while addressing the people at Uttarayani Mela on January 18, 2014. Acting on them, PWD had invited tender for the bridges in April 2014, but the finance department pleaded its inability in March 2015 to fund the project.
When the two were involved in the slugfest MlA Farswan, who is known as close to the Chief Minister Harish Rawat, alleged that he is aware of how ACS Sharma is running his office and how he is minting money, using his position unscrupulously. He threatened while talking to The Pioneer to go any length to expose things when the Chief Minister’s announcement is being trifled with.
He would see the end of things if the finance department fails to allocate funds, he warned. Sources said ACS Sharma has taken this ‘audacity’ pretty seriously. This might account for the finance department stonewalling the project, sources added.
Now the question that begs answer is - how the finance department had refused to allocate budget when the department concerned had floated tender about a year agoIJ “Does it mean that the department concerned had floated tender without going for the funds being clearedIJ If such a thing happened the state of things is horrendous, to say the least,” an observer said.