IMPHAL, December 28: It is likely that the Centre will not release any fund for the Integrated Dairy Development Programme this year due to the failure of the concerned authorities to submit the utilisation certificates of the IDDP, claimed some members of the board of director of the Manipur Milk Producer Co-operative Union.
Speaking to this reporter, the members K Nabakanta, S Suresh and Y Rajen said that the failure to submit the utilisation certificates in time has raised apprehension that funds will not be released this year.
The funds are released directly to the implementing agencies of the States.
They said the IDDP which aims at increasing milk production under the sponsorship of the Central government seems to be a failure at present, and further claimed that the Manipur Milk Producer Co-operative Union have failed to submit the Utilisation Certificate for the current year.
This has raised apprehensions that the Centre will not release more funds this year, they said.
This will only be a loss for the farmers, Nabakanta said.
He said at present there is also no managing director of the union, due to which the daily works of the union hasn’t been monitored for long, affecting the total administration.
Further hindering the working of the union is the question whether it comes under the Co-operative department or the veterinary department, he said.
In January 2015, the then Chief Secretary had issued an order stating that the union is under the department of Co-operative, however, soon enough, the Veterinary department filed a case challenging the order which is yet to be settled, the three claimed.
Even the State government has failed to resolve the issue, they observed.
Now due to all these, the Co-operative department has not even conducted the audit of the union since more than a year, the three claimed.
They continued that during the last election for board members of the union, some of the elected members were disqualified by a court due to some reasons, however, three of them have violated the court directive and trying to hinder the working of the union since November 21, 2014.
The three also highlighted a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the union and the government which was to pay a daily loyalty of Rs 1/ liter of milk produce to the State government. Although, the MoU had not been followed quite a long time since November 21, 2014, the Union had submitted a sum of Rs 52 lakhs to the State government as the loyalty tax in the recent past, they said.
They also said that although the land on which the union is running at Porompat belongs to the Veterinary department, the building and the machineries are provided by the Co-operative department.
In the past, the union used to produce atleast 7500 litres of milk daily, but today it can produce only about 4000 litres, the three said.