IMPHAL, March 14: The state government has no objection in conducting any form of investigation by any appropriate investigating agency into the matter related to the cabinet decision of the state government on the regularization of the contract employees in DRDA based on the alleged bogus letter from the Union Rural Development Ministry.
Clarifying this the Chief Minister, O Ibobi Singh during the calling attention motion raised by senior opposition MLA, O Joy Singh of MPP in the house today, the Chief Minister further clarified that, the cabinet decision which was taken earlier in connection with the regularization of the contract employees of the DRDA has not been implemented yet by the state government following the arising controversies of alleged forged letter from the central ministry.
The Chief Minister further mentioned that, as per the directive of the Union RD Ministry the matter has been in serious investigation at the moment.
He further clarified in the house that, the state government had been implementing the actual guidelines of the centre while implementing various schemes and projects by the DRDA, and from time to time as per the new schemes the required staffs have been appointed on contract basis instead of direct recruitment in order to avoid the extra financial burden as the state government ought to pay salaries or monthly stipends if once these employees in DRDA are appointed on regular basis.
Besides, the state government is considering regularization of some of the contract employees under DRDA who have joined the service through a proper DPC conducted by the state agency.
Recalling the implementation of the DRDA programmes in the state, he further mentioned that, even though the programmes for the DRDA was launched nation wide on April 1, 1999, it was started from 2002 in the state, with the financial pattern of 75:25 which means there was 75% Central and 25% state share in implementing the programmes. Further, all necessary expenditures in terms of payments of staff salaries have been given as per the directives and guidelines of the centre till today.
He further said, that the matching share on financial pattern on implementing DRDA programme in some of the North Eastern State including Manipur have been fixed to 90:10 very recently by the central government and state government is going with the newly adopted financial pattern as recommended by the centre.
In the meantime, senior opposition member MLA, O Joy Singh, while raising his call attention, mentioned that the report on taking cabinet decision for the regularization of the contract employees under the DRDA based on the bogus letter from the union RD Ministry and subsequent official letter from the director DRDA Jagadish Singh, had warned that the matter has to be brought to the Ministry before taking any steps by the state government which is of serious concerned to the general public of the state.
O Joy, further mentioned in the house that, the wisdom of the state cabinet decision that have taken based on the bogus letter from the Union Ministry could be questioned by the general public of the state, considering the gravity of the matter, and as such the matter has been brought to the house in order to have clear cut vision on the matter so that confidence of the public in the government will be improve with the clarification from the state government through the August house, he added and draw the attention of the Chief Minister for the clarification into the matter.
